Description

From a renowned scholar and translator, a new translation of Aesop’s fables.

“Lively and colloquial.” —
Wall Street Journal

Aesop’s fables are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. Tales like “The Tortoise and the Hare,” “The Dog in the Manger,” and “Sour Grapes” have captivated us for generations. The fables delight us and teach timeless truths. Aesop’s tales offer us a world fundamentally simpler to ours—one with clear good and plain evil—but nonetheless one that is marked by political nuance and literary complexity.

Newly translated and annotated by renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, this definitive translation shines a new light on four hundred of Aesop’s most enduring fables. 

Description

The calamities that befall the hapless creatures of Aesop’s Fables! The fox can’t reach his grapes, then gets attacked by biting flies and loses his tail in a trap. And things don’t go much better for the hare, who is chased relentlessly by a hound, barely escaping with his life—only to be beaten in a race by a lowly tortoise. Misfortune turns to mayhem when a wolf is killed by his sweetheart’s father, a sheepdog preys on his own flock, and the mouse and his friend the frog are eaten by a hawk. On the brighter side, a tiny ant saves her new friend the dove from a hunter’s arrow, a bat persuades two different weasels not to eat her, and a kid goat uses his wits to escape from the jaws of a hungry wolf…
 
For nearly three thousand years, the fables of Aesop have amused people of all ages as they provide commonsense lessons in the conduct of everyday life. The colorful characters and brief tales, by turns amusing and frightening, deliver a how-to course in applied moral philosophy. This edition features more than forty illustrations by the celebrated artist Ernest Griset.