Paris, France, 1752 CE. This is a printed version of La Fontaine's Fables, Volume I, with commentary by M. Coste. It is the original calfskin covers with gilt design on the front and back cover and some remaining gilt on the decorated spine. There are marbled endpapers. The book is trigesimo-secundo (32mo) in size and has an engraved illustration opposite its title page, as was commonly done by printers at this time. There are also small woodcut illustrations and initials throughout, illustrating some of the fables. The book also has a small handwritten inscription on its front matter, "W W Dance 1849". Size: 1.2" L x 3.25" W x 5.5" H (3 cm x 8.3 cm x 14 cm).

There are 239 fables written by Jean de La Fontaine and they are considered classics of French literature. They were originally published in several volumes from 1668 to 1694, at first dedicated to Louis, the Grand Dauphin, who at publication was the six-year-old son of Louis XIV of France and his queen consort Maria Theresa of Spain. Later volumes were dedicated to the king's mistress, Madame de Montespan (with whom the king had seven children!), and the king's grandchild, Louis, Duke of Burgundy. Many of Fontaine's fables echo the classics by Aesop, Phaedrus, and Babrius, but he also incorporated Eastern, particularly Indian, influences from fables that La Fontaine would have seen translated into French from Persian, as well as older French and Italian authors like Rabelais and Boccaccio. When this edition was published, literacy in France was on the rise (it doubled during the 18th century) and Paris, despite censorship and strong monarchical control over content, was the leading center of book publishing in Europe.

Provenance: Ex-Paul & Louise Bernheimer collection, Cambridge, MA and Laguna Woods, CA., acquired before 1980

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#111955

The binding is fragile and partially broken on the front, but the book is intact and easy to read. There is some water staining and yellowing to the pages.