The Fables of La Fontaine in ‘edition princeps’ are: The Fox English, The Fox and the Turkeys, The Philosopher Scite, The Rat, the Crow, the Gazelle, and the Tortoise, The Fool and the Wise Man, LThe Elephant and the Monkey of Jupiter, Madness and Love et The Monkey.
Superb copy ‘Labedoyère‘, cited by Brunet, bound in old red morocco
de Derome the young of the ‘edition princeps’, unknown to Tchemerzine et Rochebilière,
des fables of La Fontaine appearing in this volume.
Amsterdam, 1690.
La Fontaine (1621-1695). Aesop in Merry Mood, or latest translation, and augmentation of his Fables. In Prose, & in Verse.
Amsterdam, Antoine Michils, 1690.
In-12 of 360 pp. and (4) ff. ‘Pages 1 to 14 are not numbered. P. 1, frontispiece: Aesop recites his fables in the open countryside, accompanied by a sort of hurdy-gurdy held under his right arm and operated by his left hand. Animals surround him, and a monkey beside him holds a stick topped with four windmill wings, around which a banner reads: Aesop in Merry Mood. In a cartouche at the bottom of the engraving are these verses:
Come to the lesson, lively and foolish youth,
Aesop in merry mood calls you to theSchool ;
Les Beasts long ago spoke better than people,
And the age has no such learned teachers.
p. 3, title in two colors, at the Sphere, pp. 5 to 14, preface, pp. 15 to 16, Life of Aesop, pp. 17 to 360, Fables, 4 ff., Ordinary Censure.’ (Rochambeau).
Red morocco, triple filet, smooth spine decorated with full and beaded lines, gilded edges with marbling. Binding attributable to Derome the young.
149 x 87 mm.
Edition princeps of great rarity, unknown to Tchemerzine and Rochebilière, of the fables of La Fontaine appearing in this volume printed in 1690.
They will be published for the first time under the name of La Fontaine in the fifth and last volume of the first collective edition in 1694, four years later, printed and corrected under his direction, and considered by bibliographers as appearing for the first time.
These fables of La Fontaine in ‘edition princeps’ are: The Fox English (p. 275), The Fox and the Turkeys (p. 284), The Philosopher Scite (p. 288), The Rat, the Crow, the Gazelle, and the Tortoise (p. 295), The Fool and the Wise Man (p. 298), The Elephant and the Monkey of Jupiter (p. 301), Madness and Love (p. 336) and The Monkey (p. 351).
The edition is illustrated with a frontispiece and 155 superb unsigned wood engravings. Re-engraved for the 1700 edition, they will then be signed Jacobus Harrewijn (A print entitled The Fables of Aesop the Phrygian, edition of Claude Carteron in 1687?)
From La Fontaine, the censor Momus tells in the postface (4th sheet after page 360): ‘ La Fontaine asked me to add that the majority of the fables that entered into this new work had not been printed with those that had appeared under his name since the fancy lui had arisen to make these latest in view of theapproval that the public gave to the aux first. ».
And in the preface, sheet A6: ‘but so as not to distress La Fontaine who has so happily worked on the Fables, it was decided to add some of his most beautiful.
La Fontaine, having borrowed from another, Aesop or Phaedrus, a ‘subject,’ his creative act consists in the invention of a form, and it is in this that he shows himself and becomes the very great complete artist who sets his own conditions, finds his means, and always more surely tends towards the state of full possession and balance of his forces. This progress is seen in his successive collections of Fables (1668-1678-1694). The form he created is of extraordinary suppleness. It admits all tones of discourse, moving from the familiar to the solemn, from the descriptive to the dramatic, from the amusing to the pathetic, and manages these modulations to all the degrees as needed, according to the size or thinness of the theme to implement. One of the most successful achievements of this freedom of execution manifests itself in the unexpected combination of the finest and most accurate observation of the behavior and characters of animals with the human feelings and remarks they are meant to assume otherwise. It is a commonplace remark to note the treatment of the apologue as a comedy – sometimes a very small comedy, but always with admirable life and truth. It happens that this small theater on which the presenter displayed, agitated and made the feathered and furry puppets speak, suddenly expands and resounds with lyrical accents of the highest resonance. But all this has only been possible by the virtue of this poetic form which is and remains the incomparable creation of La Fontaine. It is the system of ‘ varied verses‘ to which we are alluding.
La Fontaine teaches us to know life, not to be deceived; he teaches us prudence; he corrects us of foolish or odious biases; he shows that we have an interest in not letting ourselves be blinded by vanity, ambition, greed.
How much the contemporaries appreciated La Fontaine, the numerous editions of the Tales and Fables attest to it (for the Fables, 37 editions in twenty-seven years, from 1668 to 1695), and the praises from the most diverse circles: Mme de Sévigné, Bussy-Rabutin, Chapelain, Baillet, Perrault, Bayle, La Bruyère, Cureau de La Chambre himself. Fénelon, a great admirer of the Ancients, compares him, which is saying a lot, to Terence and Virgil. ‘ La Fontaine is no more! He is no more, and with him have disappeared the playful games, the frolicsome laughter , the naive graces, and the learned Muses…‘. Rev. J-P. C. ». Rév. J-P. C.
The translation of ‘Aesop in Merry Mood’ is the work of the Flemish historian J.C. Bruslé de Montpleinchamp, who was assisted by Furetière and La Fontaine.
The few volumes containing fables of La Fontaine in the original edition are sought after by bibliophiles. Thus, two copies of the infinitely less rare edition of ‘Works of prose and poetry by the lords of Maucroy and La Fontaine‘, Paris, Claude Barbin, 1685, 2 volumes, in-12 with 10 fables of La Fontaine in the first edition, were respectively sold:
. €7,500 bound in plain calf in the J. Guérin sale in 1988, 33 years ago,
. €14,000 bound in period morocco 25 years ago (Paris, June 1996, no. 120).
Magnificent copy cited by Brunet bound in old red morocco by Derome the Younger from the Labedoyère library of one of the rarest original editions presenting unpublished Fables of Jean de La Fontaine.
