AESOP; Sir Roger L’ESTRANGE ( translator ). The Fables of Aesop.

AESOP; Sir Roger L’ESTRANGE ( translator ). The Fables of Aesop.AESOP; Sir Roger LESTRANGE (translator). The Fables of Aesop. Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire: The Golden Cockerel Press. 1926. Large 8vo. Cream backed brown publishers boards lettered in gilt to spine, in typographic dust jacket; with 11 wood engravings by Celia M. Fiennes; pp. [8], iii v, [1], 94, [6]; almost entirely uncut, spine tips lightly bumped, previous bookseller sticker Paul Elder & Co, San Francisco to rear paste down, bookplate of Alma

AESOP; Sir Roger L’ESTRANGE (translator). The Fables of Aesop. Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire: The Golden Cockerel Press. 1926.

Large 8vo. Cream-backed brown publisher’s boards lettered in gilt to spine, in typographic dust-jacket; with 11 wood engravings by Celia M. Fiennes; pp. [8], iii-v, [1], 94, [6]; almost entirely uncut, spine tips lightly bumped, previous bookseller sticker “Paul Elder & Co, San Francisco” to rear paste-down, bookplate of Alma Ruth Lavenson to the front paste-down (see below); a near-fine copy; the jacket is lightly spotted, browned along spine and to folds, chipped to extremities with some closed tears along spine; good but seldom found.

Limited edition, number 268 of 350 copies, of L’Estrange’s translation of the Fables, rare in dust-jacket.

L’Estrange first published his version of the fables in 1692, and it is now regarded as one of the most popular English translations. Commissioned by a group of booksellers, his edition appeared two years after Locke had recommended Aesop as an ideal first reading book for children. As Muir notes, it was “the best and largest collection of fables in English, and he had children especially in mind when making his compilation”. L’Estrange’s Aesop is, in fact, “an assemblage of fables and facetiae from a variety of sources, ancient and modern, the second volume being wholly un-Aesopian. The trenchant reflections added to the individual fables possess a strong political animus and were to draw severe criticism from the later Whig fabulist Samuel Croxall; but all L’Estrange’s translations have some degree of political colouring” (DNB).

The simplistic yet highly effective wood engravings are by Celia M. Fiennes, a direct descendant of the seventeenth-century travel writer Celia Fiennes. She was an accomplished printmaker and illustrator – in the same year as this publication, she produced twelve wood engravings for the Cresset Press edition of Matthew Stevenson’s 1661 work The Twelve Moneths.

Provenance: From the library of the American photographer Alma Ruth Lavenson (1897-1989). Lavenson was particularly prolific in the 1920s and 30s and was influenced by Pictorialism; she worked alongside photographers such as Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and Edward Weston, and developed friendships with these artists.

Chanticleer 45. See Muir, English Children’s Books, 1600 to 1900.

SKU: 2115021