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Aesop's Illustrated Fables book cover
Aesop's Illustrated Fables
Aesop
2013
First Published
4.00
Average Rating
464
Number of Pages

Aesop's Illustrated Fables features more than 400 fables, beautifully illustrated with engravings and color plates by Arthur Rackham, Walter Crane, and Ernest Griset. It includes all of the classic fables whose titles and morals have become part of our common cultural vocabulary, among them "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse," "The Dog in the Manger," and "The Fox and the Grapes." Part fairy tale, part fantasy story, part parable with a lesson to impart, each of these fables is a polished gem of storytelling craft whose luster never dulls. Aesop's Illustrated Fables is one of Barnes & Noble's Collectible Editions classics. Each volume features authoritative texts by the world's greatest authors, in exquisitely designed bonded-leather bindings with distinctive gilt edging and an attractive ribbon bookmark. Decorative, durable, and collectible, these books offer hours of pleasure to readers young and old, and are an indispensable cornerstone for every home library.

Avg Rating
4.00
Number of Ratings
11
5 STARS
9%
4 STARS
82%
3 STARS
9%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads

Author

Aesop
Aesop
Author · 15 books

620 BC - 564 BC Tradition considers Greek fabulist Aesop as the author of Aesop's Fables , including "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Fox and the Grapes." This credited ancient man told numerous now collectively known stories. None of his writings, if they ever existed, survive; despite his uncertain existence, people gathered and credited numerous tales across the centuries in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Generally human characteristics of animals and inanimate objects that speak and solve problems characterize many of the tales. One can find scattered details of his life in ancient sources, including Aristotle, Herodotus, and Plutarch. An ancient literary work, called The Aesop Romance tells an episodic, probably highly fictional version of his life, including the traditional description of him as a strikingly ugly slave (δοῦλος), whose cleverness acquires him freedom as an adviser to kings and city-states. Older spellings of his name included Esop(e) and Isope. A later tradition, dating from the Middle Ages, depicts Aesop as a black Ethiopian. Depictions of Aesop in popular culture over the last two and a half millennia included several works of art and his appearance as a character in numerous books, films, plays, and television programs. Abandoning the perennial image of Aesop as an ugly slave, the movie Night in Paradise (1946) cast Turhan Bey in the role, depicting Aesop as an advisor to Croesus, king; Aesop falls in love with a Persian princess, the intended bride of the king, whom Merle Oberon plays. Lamont Johnson also plays Aesop the Helene Hanff teleplay Aesop and Rhodope (1953), broadcast on hallmark hall of fame. Brazilian dramatist Guilherme Figueiredo published A raposa e as uvas ("The Fox and the Grapes"), a play in three acts about the life of Aesop, in 1953; in many countries, people performed this play, including a videotaped production in China in 2000 under the title Hu li yu pu tao or 狐狸与葡萄 . Beginning in 1959, animated shorts under the title Aesop and Son recurred as a segment in the television series Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, its successor. People abandoned the image of Aesop as ugly slave; Charles Ruggles voiced Aesop, a Greek citizen, who recounted for the edification of his son, Aesop Jr., who then delivered the moral in the form of an atrocious pun. In 1998, Robert Keeshan voiced him, who amounted to little more than a cameo in the episode "Hercules and the Kids" in the animated television series Hercules. In 1971, Bill Cosby played him in the television production Aesop's Fables. British playwright Peter Terson first produced the musical Aesop's Fables in 1983. In 2010, Mhlekahi Mosiea as Aesop staged the play at the Fugard theatre in Cape Town, South Africa.

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