Illustrated Aesop's Fables through history
August 30, 2012 12:18 AM Subscribe
Historical versions of Aesop's fables - text and pictures - collected by Laura Gibbs. She gives thousands of historic texts in English, Latin, and Greek, but even better, has Flickr sets of the historic illustrations (that page is sorted by artist) from editions by Rackham, Caldecott, and other artists going back to the 1400s.
Incomplete list sorted by story (by Perry index number).
Here are a few quickly selected images, to give a taste of the personality in these sets:
Wolf, Fox, and Monkey by Brescia, 1557;
The Boaster by Crane;
Frog and Ox by Caldecott;
Monkey and Dolphin by Detmold 1909;
The Tall Tree and the Low Bramble by Arthur Rackham;
Fox and Grapes by 20th century watercolorist Felix Lorioux
(Bonus: this nice look at Lorioux's work at Animation Resources; including a wild cast of insect revelers and this nice crow)
Incomplete list sorted by story (by Perry index number).
Here are a few quickly selected images, to give a taste of the personality in these sets:
Wolf, Fox, and Monkey by Brescia, 1557;
The Boaster by Crane;
Frog and Ox by Caldecott;
Monkey and Dolphin by Detmold 1909;
The Tall Tree and the Low Bramble by Arthur Rackham;
Fox and Grapes by 20th century watercolorist Felix Lorioux
(Bonus: this nice look at Lorioux's work at Animation Resources; including a wild cast of insect revelers and this nice crow)
I love this idea but I'll be damned if I can figure out how it's organized.
posted by DU at 5:28 AM on August 30, 2012
posted by DU at 5:28 AM on August 30, 2012
DU, are you referring to the Perry Index? Gibbs also provides a different index, sorting by title, so all the stories of Ant and [other] are in alphabetical order by the English title.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:37 AM on August 30, 2012
posted by filthy light thief at 5:37 AM on August 30, 2012
No, I get the index. I don't get where I click to see the images.
Like, here is Tortoise v Hare clicked from the name index. No images to be found. But if you go by the Perry Index, you get this page which is totally different. Some of the links below have some images but most have text. It's all very confusing.
posted by DU at 5:51 AM on August 30, 2012
Like, here is Tortoise v Hare clicked from the name index. No images to be found. But if you go by the Perry Index, you get this page which is totally different. Some of the links below have some images but most have text. It's all very confusing.
posted by DU at 5:51 AM on August 30, 2012
I think Gibbs' focus was the text, and the images are a separate effort. They are sorted in all sorts of ways, which does make it hard to find all examples of a text and graphics for a given story, but probably made sense to Gibbs in terms of organization by collection and artist.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:27 AM on August 30, 2012
posted by filthy light thief at 7:27 AM on August 30, 2012
Yes, the images are not linked to the texts in a predictable or user-friendly way. I get the sense she has put this whole (huge) set of resources together on a shoestring and started with the texts (to support students learning Latin?). The Flickr sets are the best-organized of the several places she has images, and the labeling on them is unfortunately very minimal. In a perfect world, it would all be better integrated and systematically labeled and cross-referenced.
I found it last night and just thought it was so fun that I was willing to put up with the idiosyncratic labeling.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:39 AM on August 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
I found it last night and just thought it was so fun that I was willing to put up with the idiosyncratic labeling.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:39 AM on August 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
Oh man, this is the best. What a superb find!
I really like how pissed off most of the animals in Milo Winter's edition look. For instance, that's one angry sheep.
posted by Kattullus at 5:22 PM on August 31, 2012
I really like how pissed off most of the animals in Milo Winter's edition look. For instance, that's one angry sheep.
posted by Kattullus at 5:22 PM on August 31, 2012
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