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A highlight of fable illustration

ROUSSET, A.
Fables. Esope - La Fontaine.
Lyon, Impr. Fonville-Brunet et Bonnaviat, (1848-1855). 4 vols. Large 8vo. With 4 nicely illustrated lithographed titles by Genod, 20 wood-engraved half-titles, lithographed portrait of the author, numerous wood-engraved vignettes in text, and 152 full-page lithographed, wood-engraved and etched plates, illustrating the fables, by A. Chaine, Fonville, Bonirote, C. Farine, Louis Guy, Regnier, R. Laurasse, M. d'Auvigny, A. Thieriat, Pinet, etc. Contemporary half brown morocco, spines ribbed and gilt, red mottled edges. 288; 288; 288; 288, XXI, (3 blank) pp.
€ 1,500
First and only edition of an extremely rare collection of fables, published at Lyon and beautifully illustrated by contemporary Lyon artists. Alexis Rousset, born in 1798 at Oulins, Rhône, had settled at Lyon where he worked as a secretary to a pharmacist, which left him enough free hours to devote himself to literature. The present collection of fables, freely reworked in verse after the fables of Aesop, La Fontaine and other sources, was probably published in parts over a period of time, and was more or less a collective Lyon undertaking.
This rich and very attractive art manifestation from Lyon was ignored by Vicaire and other Paris bibliographers, but it certainly deserves to be "discovered" and appointed its own firm and original place within fable literature and especially within fable illustration.
Very fine set. Not in Vicaire; not in Fabula Docet, Anne Stevinson Hobbs, or The Fox and the Grapes, Checklist Aesopic Fables Pierpont Morgan Library.
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Literature & linguistics  >  Emblem, Fable & Songbooks