This treasury of fables come from a wide variety of ancient sources, both Western and Eastern, and were adapted into French free verse by La Fontaine in the 17th Century. They are considered a classic of French literature. Humorous, nuanced, and ironic, they were originally written for adults but eventually became required learning for children throughout France.
La Fontaine’s Fables are celebrated for their freshness in narration, unconstrained suppleness of metrical structure, unfailing humor of the pointed moral, and consummate art in their apparent artlessness. Keen insight into the foibles of human nature is central to these lessons. Brilliant in their presentation of moral choices, the fables disguise their sympathies that were more democratic than his age would have tolerated in unmasked expression.
Our edition of Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables Choisies presents his first collection, which appeared in 1668, in both their original French and English along with reproductions of original wood engravings from the first edition. Over the course of the next two decades, he wrote and published more than two hundred additional fables, assembling a canon of wit and wisdom that continues to inspire and delight children of all ages.
Jean de La Fontaine was a French poet and fabulist who is best known for his collection of fables, or Fables Choisies. Though Fontaine drew inspiration from his many predecessors, such as Aesop, Babirus, and Phaedrus, his fables are renowned for their artistic creativity, humor, and unmasked conveying of social doctrines and sympathies unheard of at the time.
Born at Châreau-Thierry in France, he spent most of his adult life and literary career residing in Paris. He originally studied to become a lawyer and was admitted before he published his first work, an adaptation of Eunuchus of Terence.
