c1947 Aesop's Animal Fables Picture and Story

Description

Colour Plates, Illustrated, Publishers' Original Binding, Rebound, With Slipcase

Present here are two copies of this children's edition of the animal fables of Aesop, illustrated throughout in colour by E. H. Davie.

Davie is best known as one of the illustrators frequently used by Enid Blyton, but little else about them is known.

The first of the two copies of this edition present here is in the publisher's original cloth backed pictorial paper covered boards, while the other has been rebound by Eric Sweet - with his bookplate to the front pastedown - with endpapers renewed.

Eric Sweet was a keen collector of private press and fables. He studied at the Brighton College of Art, before moving to London to work as a lettering artist and typographer for advertising agencies, later becoming the head of Birmingham School of Printing. Sweet's bindings are unique and striking, reflecting the topics of the volumes in distinctive style.

Sweet has produced a chemise and slip case to house these two volumes. To the interior of the chemise is laid down the pictorial paper boards of the rebound volume.

Undated; dated circa 1947 via the British Library.

Aesop's Fables are a collection of brief moral tales attributed to a storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece around the 6th century BCE. These tales typically feature animals as characters who embody human traits and behaviours, teaching practical life lessons through their interactions.

Classic fables like "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," and "The Ant and the Grasshopper" use simple narratives to convey enduring wisdom about virtues such as perseverance, honesty, and hard work.