About this Item
First printed in 1912; stated 1956 printing, the twelfth, in scarce pictorial wrapper. Superbly illustrated, decorated, and featuring a thoroughly enjoyable introduction by G. K. Chesterton. Evergreen full-cloth boards, bright silver cover vignette and spine titles, moderate shelf, corner wear. Bright silver flying stork vignette at spine. Pages generally very good, clean; no writing. Light fox to exterior text block. Small yellow striped antiquarian label inside cover: "Harold Hockey Ltd. Stationers & Booksellers, Clifton, Bristol 8." Illustrated endpapers featuring: an eagle, lion, rooster, frog, fox, mouse and duck; toned areas from removed adhesive at front and back endpaper. With eight richly colored, smooth coated plates by Arthur Rackham and over fifty black and white illustrations, many full-page, in immaculate detail throughout. Bind good, square; hinges intact. Original white pictorial dust wrapper, moderate rub, discoloration, small spine sticker-pull; unclipped 15s NET, protected in new clear sleeve. Front panel features Rackham's "The Blackamoor" plate, as the first edition, w/title at spine; advert for Rackham titles from Heinemann at back panel. Attractive near very good mid-century printing in rare near fine wrapper. Aesop's Fables was first published in 1912 with this imagery by Rackham. Includes two-hundred fables of timeless humor and wisdom. "In Aesop's Fables (1912) Rackham's primary intention was to amuse, but his illustrations for fables of 'The Moon and her Mother' and 'The Gnat and the Lion' suggest the imaginative refinement that he brought to the task. Rackham was often his own model; there are several self-caricatures to be detected in Aesop's Fables. He is the man who catches the flea, the pompous gentleman who scolds the drowning boy, the credulous slave-owner who scrubs the black boy" (Hudson, Derek. Arthur Rackham His Life and Work, p. 94). Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 B.C. The first century A.D. philosopher, Apollonius of Tyana, is recorded as having said about Aesop: ". like those who dine well off the plainest dishes, he made use of humble incidents to teach great truths, and after serving up a story he adds to it the advice to do a thing or not to do it. Then, too, he was really more attached to truth than the poets are; for the latter do violence to their own stories in order to make them probable; but he by announcing a story which everyone knows not to be true, told the truth by the very fact that he did not claim to be relating real events" (Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Book V:14).Latimore and Haskell pp. 38-39. Printed in Great Britain at The Windmill Press, Kingswood, Surrey. 5 1/4" x 8" design. 224 pages. Insured post. Size: 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" Tall.
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