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Fables of Aesop and other Eminent Mythologists: With Morals and Reflexions. Part 1. The Third Edition Corrected and Amended. with Fables and Storyes Moralized. Being a Second Part of the Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists &c.
122913London: for R. Sare B. Took M. Gillyflower A. & J. Churchil G. Sawbridge and J. Hindmarsh 1699. 2 vols. in one folio 10 28 8 476; 16 238 2 ads. pp. Engraved frontispiece portrait of L’Estrange by Roger White after Geoffrey Kneller and full page engraving of Aesop and animals both in vol. 1. Contemporary calf neatly rebacked and tips restored a clean very well-margined copy. Inscribed twice by John Bailward dated 1730 and a few pencil notes and sketches in the text. § One of the first collections of fables prepared specifically for children. Third edition corrected and amended from the 1692 edition. With the second part in first edition the two seldom found together. Roger L'Estrange 1616-1704 was Tory journalist and pamphleteer notorious for his censorship of “seditious†Whig publications in his role as Surveyor of the Press. His edition of Aesop was commissioned by a group of booksellers and appeared two years after Locke first recommended Aesop as a first reading book for children. Muir writes it was “the best and largest collection of fables in English and he had children especially in mind when making his compilation… He included many other fabulists besides Aesop notably a selection from La Fontaine within 20 years of the first appearance of any of his fables in French. It is highly probable that this was their earliest appearance in English.†The DNB notes of L’Estrange’s Aesop that it was “an assemblage of fables and facetiae from a variety of sources ancient and modern the second volume being wholly unAesopian. 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… This compilation also includes a biography of Aesop an alphabetical table of the fables and fables by Barlandus Anianus Abstemius Poggius and La Fontaine.†DNB. Wing A-709 and A-1247. Muir English Children’s Books p.24. for R. Sare unknown books
