BENNETT'S FABLES: From Aesop and Others

A reprint (not a replica) of a classic of 19th-century illustration, featuring Bennett's variously sly, pompous, preening, gabby, and altogether human animals in Victorian garb. Gerald Gottlieb, Curator of Early Children's Books at New York's Morgan Library, contributes some introductory remarks on the elusive Aesop and on artist-adaptor Bennett (linking his animal caricatures to Grandville's) which seem directed, by their simple style, to children, and by their content, to adults. But in any case, Bennett's retellings will be over the heads of children, however much they might enjoy his witty pictures, as per this sample: ""There were certain hungry carrion-hunting Wolves, who, in a qualm of wonderful clarity, paid a visit to a fat old Ass, who lay ill of a bean-surfeit, and was like to die."" For special collections, then, and the attention of aspiring cartoonists and illustrators.