WITH ORIGINAL ORNAMENTATION THROUGHOUT
AESOP.
The Fables … With a Life of the Author: and embellished with one hundred & twelve Plates …
London, Printed for John Stockdale … 1793.
Two vols, pp. [2], lxv, [1], 189, [1]; [2], xi, [1], 248, with an illustrative engraved title-page to each volume (‘The’ cropped from head of volume I), and 110 further engraved plates; embellished with an additional manuscript title-page in volume one, titles to each fable illuminated and decorated with flowers and foliage or emblematic tools, decorative initials and endpieces, elaborate decorative border to the first fable in each volume, the other text leaves within double ruled borders in blue, gilt borders to some of the engravings; a very good copy in early diced calf, gilt tooled borders, rebacked, joints rubbed; calligraphic ownership inscription of JA(?)F Fuller 1819.
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The Fables … With a Life of the Author: and embellished with one hundred & twelve Plates …
Second Stockdale edition, a paginary reprint of the first with the text reset using a short ‘s’ throughout; the translation was that of Samuel Croxall. Stockdale’s Aesop was notable for the extensive suite of illustrations, with plates by some thirty engravers including Stothard and Landseer, but an early owner has distinguished this copy with an elaborate scheme of hand-coloured decoration, very finely executed though not always relevant to the fable it accompanies. The titles to each fable are overpainted in red and gilt, and decorated with elaborate headpieces and/or borders. Endpieces include animals (owls pulling a chariot, several dogs, a guinea pig, a goat eating leaves), flowers, fruit, insects, and birds; and the small decorative initials include flowers, feathers, and a witch on a broomstick.
Brunet I, col. 103; Lowndes I, p. 17.
