Best-loved Fables

Fables are short tales with a moral, often featuring animal characters.

Aesop's fables from Ancient Greece are the best-known, and Jean de la Fontaine elegantly reworked their themes to the taste of 17th century France. Oral storytellers have kept the fable alive all over the world.

Aesops' fables include: Sour Grapes, The Lion's Share, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, King Log, The Dog in the Manger and The Wind and the Sun.

The fables of La Fontaine include: The Cicada and the Ant, The Frog Who Wanted to be as Big as the Ox, The Fox and the Stork, The Lion and the Goat and The Rat and the Elephant.

This enchanting collection of best-loved fables is illustrated with work by many of the great names of the golden age of illustration, including Walter Crane, Charles H.

Bennett, Charles Robinson, Richard Heighway, Frederick Burr Opper, J M Conde and others.