Jean de La Fontaine: Fabloj

Abstract

This 84-page small-format (4½ x 6) book contains, as the ending Alfabeta Listo makes clear, some sixty-six fables. The first fables give a sense of the fun it is, if one knows some Western languages, to encounter the titles here: Cikado Kaj Formiko; Korvo Kaj Vulpo; and Rano Volas Egali Bovon. Soon thereafter one encounters Lupo Kaj Hundo. A little Latin and some German seems to take one a long way in Espéranto! There are occasional partial-page monochrome illustrations by various artists. FC (10) is signed Dupre. OR (24), WC (38), The Eagle and Owl (49), and The Beasts Sick from the Plague (56) are all signed either W.H.F. or W.H. Freeman. The Rat and the Elephant (69) may be signed Hildibrand (Henri-Théophile). The last illustration is TT (78). Espéranto is the fifty-fifth language in which I have found fable books. Dupré is one of the engravers who worked with Freeman and Hildibrand, according to Bodemann.