Product Details


List Price:	$19.95
Our Price:	$13.97
You Save:	$5.98 (29.97%)

Release Date:	October, 2000
Media:	Hardcover
ISBN:	1587170000

Availability:	Usually ships within 24 hours
Average Review:	Based on 16 reviews.

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Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review:

Based on 16 reviews.

Aesop's Fables told for adults, as they were intended
Culturally we are now at the point when "Slow but steady wins the race," "Look before you leap," and "Necessity is the mother of invention" are considered wise sayings passed down from generation to generation. But even if you know these proverbs you might have forgotten, or probably never knew in the first place, that they were first said by an ex-slave named Aesop two thousand years ago and each was the moral to one of his fables. This particular collection of Aesop's fables is based on the 19th-century research and translation of George Fyler Townsend, for whom the stories were moral lessons intended for an ADULT audience rather than simply children's stories about anthropomophic animals. Because he used animals with human strengths and weaknesses, Aesop's tales have been directed over the years more towards children; I heard of lot of them for the first time on a record by the Smothers Brothers. But Townsend restores the style and sophistication that are not commonly found in the juvenile editions of Aesop. In addition to the familiar fables like "The Fox and the Grapes" and "The Hare and the Tortoise" there are dozens of lesser known fables uncovered by Townsend and included in the over 300 fables included in this edition, which makes this collection one of the more comprehensive of its kind.

Aesop's Fables, told as they were intended: for adults
Culturally we are now at the point when "Slow but steady wins the race," "Look before you leap," and "Necessity is the mother of invention" are considered wise sayings passed down from generation to generation. But even if you know these proverbs you might have forgotten, or probably never knew in the first place, that they were first said by an ex-slave named Aesop two thousand years ago and each was the moral to one of his fables. This particular collection of Aesop's fables is based on the 19th-century research and translation of George Fyler Townsend, for whom the stories were moral lessons intended for an ADULT audience rather than simply children's stories about anthropomophic animals. Because he used animals with human strengths and weaknesses, Aesop's tales have been directed over the years more towards children; I heard of lot of them for the first time on a record by the Smothers Brothers. But Townsend restores the style and sophistication that are not commonly found in the juvenile editions of Aesop. In addition to the familiar fables like "The Fox and the Grapes" and "The Hare and the Tortoise" there are dozens of lesser known fables uncovered by Townsend and included in the over 300 fables included in this edition, which makes this collection one of the more comprehensive of its kind.

Comprehensive, but a Bit Too Short & Sweet
If you are looking for a short, comprehensive, encyclopedic catalogue of Aesop's Fables then this book is a steal. There are 83 fables in all, including the more famous ones such as the Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Lion and the Mouse and the Goose That Laid the Golden Egg. Each fable comes with a half page or so re-telling of its story plus a one sentence synopsis of the stories' "moral" at the end.

My problem with this is that the stories are so short, there is no magic in them. They are stripped of all but the bones. I can't imagine a child being interested in the stories told this way. I would have preferred them cutting the number of stories and instead fleshing them out by a few pages. I recommend paying a few bucks more for *The Aesop for Children* (ISBN:0590479776) by M. Winter which does just that.