aesop's fables

While on Google Books, innocently researching wild animals in Eastern Europe, I stumbled on a trove of 19th-Century editions of Aesop's Fables. Many of them are beautifully illustrated with drawings, engravings, and woodcuts.

My favorite is from 1875 and is "Designed and Drawn on the Wood by Charles. H. Bennett". The pictures combine the morality of the fables with that wonderful flair for political satire that Victorian illustrators excelled in.





For simplicity, there's Mara L. Pratt's 1892 version for children. The pictures are generally small but well composed, with no credit to the illustrator, except "RS" printed in the corners. Each fable begins with a list of "blackboard words" for the inquisitive.





Then there's Walter Crane's 1887 "Baby's Own Aesop." The title page speaks for itself, and check out the nicely patterned frontispiece.





Also, honorable mentions to an 1880 edition "Profusely Illustrated" by Enest Griset, and Mons. De Meziriac's 1897 edition.