Fun-Sized Fables
[FABLES.]
Petit fabuliste. Paris, [(colophon:) Firmin-Didot], [c. 1840].
64mo (27 x 24 mm), pp. 87, [1 (blank)]; woodcut illustrations throughout; very slightly browned, a couple of headlines shaved or cut into; else a very good copy in the publisher’s green velvet-backed white bone panels, title engraved in black to front panel, green silk endleaves, edges gilt.
A charming miniature collection of illustrated fables published in nineteenth-century Paris.
Tiny in scale and pleasingly bound in the original green velvet with white bone panels, the collection consists of thirteen fables – most of them original and most concerning animals: the Caterpillar and the Butterfly; the Peacock and the Crane; the Donkey, the Monkey, and the Mole; etc. – with six ‘delightful woodcut plates’ (Spielmann).
The publishers Firmin-Didot were among the pioneers of miniature printing and popularised the ‘point’ system of measuring font size (the present edition is in five-point type).
Spielmann 402 (in a variant publisher’s binding of red morocco).