Special Collections
Book of the Month, January 2009
The Fables of Aesop
Aesop; illustrated by Edward Detmold
London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1909]
[S.L.] IV [Detmold - 1909]
Senate House Library holds multiple editions of Aesop’s Fables published in various languages between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. This edition was recently purchased for its twenty-three coloured illustrations by Edward Detmold. (1883-1957), one of the best animal illustrators of the Edwardian age. While adhering to the art nouveau of his own age, Detmold was strongly influenced by Dürer’s woodcuts and by Japanese art. Shown here is his illustration for the fable of the fox and the crane. In this story a fox invites a crane to dinner and serves soup in a broad dish, from which the crane with his long beak cannot imbibe. The crane takes revenge by returning the invitation and setting before the fox a flagon with a long narrow mouth: ‘The fox, unable even to taste it, met with a fitting requital, after the fashion of her own hospitality’.
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