The Fables of Aesop

The Fables of Aesop Synopsis

Excerpt from The Fables of Aesop: As First Printed by William Caxton in 1484, With Those of Avian, Alfonso and Poggio, Now Again Edited and Induced by Joseph Jacobs

On the typographical peculiarities of the original - how it is composed in the fourth fount used by Caxton, and so ou - we need not dilate here. Are not these things writ ten, once for all, in the Chronicles of Blades (w. Blades' Life and Work of Caxton, ii. 157 one of the few final books written by an Englishman? Caxton's 'esope' is distinguished in the history of English print ing by being the first book to possess initial letters. A facsimile of the first of these, appropriately enough the letter A, is given at the beginning of this Preface. In the original every fable is accompanied by a woodcut: we give a few of these, reduced in size: they claim no merit but that of the grotesque.

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