Fables choisies mises en vers

2 volumes in-12 of: I/ (29) ff., 228 pp., (2) ff.; II/ 220 pp., (2) ff.
Red morocco, Duseuil-style double fillet borders on covers, raised bands to richly decorated spine, double gilt fillet on edges, inner roll-tool border, marbled edges with gilt. Bindings signed by Lortic.

156 x 87 mm.

La Fontaine, Jean de. Selected Fables, put into verse by M. de la Fontaine.
Paris, Claude Barbin, 1669-1668. With Royal Privilege.

Extremely rare and definitive first edition ofLa Fontaine’s Fablesof which Volume II is missing from the B.n.F.

Volume I^st present here contains the final corrections made by La Fontaine, brought by the illustrious fabulist to the Denys Thierry edition of 1668.

“Volume I is a reprint of the Denys Thierry edition of 1668 with some corrections by La Fontaine; Volume II is missing from the National Library. The Victor Cousin Library owns a volume II (14346) which is none other than that of 1668, bearing the date 1668” (Rochambeau).

This copy matches the Victor Cousin copy cited by Rochambeau.

“The title of Volume I is decorated with the same fleuron with the Dauphin’s arms that adorns the title of the quarto but smaller. The end of fable I of book IV is the same as in the quarto. This edition, which reproduces the quarto except for a few corrections and changes, is the Second Original Edition of the Fables. It contains the same half-page engravings by Chauveau” (Tchemerzine).

“The 1668 Fables mark a major milestone in the history of the genre. This masterpiece earned La Fontaine a place alongside the leading figures of French classicism. The well-deserved success was immediate: attested especially in the same year as the quarto edition by the release of a duodecimo edition in two volumes featuring the vignettes engraved by François Chauveau. Since then, La Fontaine’s Fables have been reprinted countless times and their popularity has never waned, even to this day” (Jean-Pierre Collinet, En Français dans le texte, No. 105).

“Since the publication of the first six books in 1668, La Fontaine’s ‘Fables’ have enjoyed lasting fame. Generations of schoolchildren have learned by heart ‘The Grasshopper and the Ant’, ‘The Crow and the Fox’, and many other fables that are equally remarkable for the liveliness of their narrative, the fantasy of their imagination, and the precision of their expression. A precision so masterful as to be unsettling, with the storyteller giving an impression of casualness and familiarity while never using a word that is not needed. That casualness, indeed, was in the temperament of this craftsman, who was attentive only to his art.

Born in 1621 in Château-Thierry, La Fontaine, who tried his hand at the law, was a negligent Master of Waters and Forests and managed his estate very poorly. He only achieved real material stability once he was protected and housed—from 1673 onward—by Madame de La Sablière. But, frivolous in business and in love, he was steadfast in his friendships. When, in 1661, Fouquet was arrested and the artists who had worked for him rallied to Louis XIV, only La Fontaine—to whom the superintendent had granted a pension for his ‘Adonis’—defended him in an ‘Ode to the King’, thereby closing the doors of the court to himself for a long time.”