AESOP'S FABLES

Fifty-eight economically retold fables, many of them relatively unfamiliar. Salter, drawing on her own eastern Mediterranean heritage, makes a major contribution with elegantly stylized art, its intricate details, jewel-like colors, and imaginatively varied borders recalling Persian miniatures. The frequent full-page illustrations sometimes amplify the stories, but the more numerous vignettes simply represent characters or serve as decoration. In strict classical tradition, the stories are so succinct that they are almost mathematical in dispensing justification for the appended morals--which are phrased as maxims, often in familiar form (""Don't jump to conclusions""). A handsome, useful edition. The publisher doesn't identify the adapter, and there's no comment on her sources.