1692 1st Edition , Landmark Restoration-era English Æsop
FABLES OF AESOP
and Other Eminent Mythologists: With Morals and Reflections
By Sir Roger L'Estrange
Author Bio: Sir Roger L'Estrange (17 December 1616 – 11 December 1704) was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier, and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of King Charles II's regime during the Restoration era. His works played a key role in the emergence of a distinct 'Tory' bloc during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81. Perhaps his best known polemical pamphlet was An Account of the Growth of Knavery, which ruthlessly attacked the parliamentary opposition to Charles II and his successor James, Duke of York (later King James II), placing them as fanatics who misused contemporary popular anti-Catholic sentiment to attack the Restoration court and the existing social order in order to pursue their own political ends.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the collapse of the Restoration political order heralded the end of L'Estrange's career in public life, although his greatest translation work, that of Aesop's Fables, saw publication in 1692.
Synopsis: The landmark first edition of Sir Roger L’Estrange’s influential English Æsop — one of the earliest and most substantial renderings of the fables into the English tongue, and a foundational text in the tradition of moral literature and children’s instruction, long prior to La Fontaine’s dominance in the Anglophone world.
L’Estrange’s translation is expansive, drawing not only upon Æsop but also Anianus, Abstemius, and other fabulists; each fable followed by a Moral and an extended Reflexion, offering philosophical and political interpretation in the spirited Restoration manner of its author — a vigorous royalist polemicist and Master of the Press under Charles II.
A key work in the English moral tradition; highly influential for later fabulists and early education.
Binding: Hardcover, folio (fo 12 × 19 in 305 × 483 mm )
Note: Binding/size selection follows standard bibliographic conventions and is approximate; exact measurements may vary.
Collation: Title; Preface pp. 1–9; 1 full-page engraved plate (Æsop “UTILE DULCI”); main text pp. 1–480; Alphabetical Table (7pp); Errata (1p); blanks/endpapers as present.
Plates: Æsop plate present. Lacking engraved portrait frontispiece of Sir Roger L’Estrange (White after Kneller).
Language: English
Published By: Printed for R. Sare, T. Sawbridge, B. Took, M. Gillyflower, A. & J. Churchill, and J. Hindmarsh., London
Condition Report:
Dust Jacket: No Jacket, Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Good - Format: Folio. 33.5 × 21 × 4.5 cm(approx.).
Plates: 1 engraved plate present (Æsop surrounded by animals) engraver uncredited — as issued. Portrait frontispiece: [lacking].
Condition: Period calf boards, worn and rubbed; joints tender with evidence of early reinforcement; expected age-toning/foxing; occasional light marginal soiling; rough-cut edges. Tear pp. 333/334 with minor loss to text on p. 334. Early ink marginalia to a few leaves; minor worming to inner margin of preliminaries (not affecting text). A solid, unsophisticated copy, lacking the portrait frontispiece.
References: Wing A706. ESTC R61122..
Shipping Info: Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 3Kg
Tracked Shipping, Insurance Coverage as per Customer Request
SKU: BTETM0001543
1692 1st Edition , Landmark Restoration-era English Æsop
FABLES OF AESOP
and Other Eminent Mythologists: With Morals and Reflections
By Sir Roger L'Estrange
Author Bio: Sir Roger L'Estrange (17 December 1616 – 11 December 1704) was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier, and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of King Charles II's regime during the Restoration era. His works played a key role in the emergence of a distinct 'Tory' bloc during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81. Perhaps his best known polemical pamphlet was An Account of the Growth of Knavery, which ruthlessly attacked the parliamentary opposition to Charles II and his successor James, Duke of York (later King James II), placing them as fanatics who misused contemporary popular anti-Catholic sentiment to attack the Restoration court and the existing social order in order to pursue their own political ends.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the collapse of the Restoration political order heralded the end of L'Estrange's career in public life, although his greatest translation work, that of Aesop's Fables, saw publication in 1692.
Synopsis: The landmark first edition of Sir Roger L’Estrange’s influential English Æsop — one of the earliest and most substantial renderings of the fables into the English tongue, and a foundational text in the tradition of moral literature and children’s instruction, long prior to La Fontaine’s dominance in the Anglophone world.
L’Estrange’s translation is expansive, drawing not only upon Æsop but also Anianus, Abstemius, and other fabulists; each fable followed by a Moral and an extended Reflexion, offering philosophical and political interpretation in the spirited Restoration manner of its author — a vigorous royalist polemicist and Master of the Press under Charles II.
A key work in the English moral tradition; highly influential for later fabulists and early education.
Binding: Hardcover, folio (fo 12 × 19 in 305 × 483 mm )
Note: Binding/size selection follows standard bibliographic conventions and is approximate; exact measurements may vary.
Collation: Title; Preface pp. 1–9; 1 full-page engraved plate (Æsop “UTILE DULCI”); main text pp. 1–480; Alphabetical Table (7pp); Errata (1p); blanks/endpapers as present.
Plates: Æsop plate present. Lacking engraved portrait frontispiece of Sir Roger L’Estrange (White after Kneller).
Language: English
Published By: Printed for R. Sare, T. Sawbridge, B. Took, M. Gillyflower, A. & J. Churchill, and J. Hindmarsh., London
Condition Report:
Dust Jacket: No Jacket, Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Good - Format: Folio. 33.5 × 21 × 4.5 cm(approx.).
Plates: 1 engraved plate present (Æsop surrounded by animals) engraver uncredited — as issued. Portrait frontispiece: [lacking].
Condition: Period calf boards, worn and rubbed; joints tender with evidence of early reinforcement; expected age-toning/foxing; occasional light marginal soiling; rough-cut edges. Tear pp. 333/334 with minor loss to text on p. 334. Early ink marginalia to a few leaves; minor worming to inner margin of preliminaries (not affecting text). A solid, unsophisticated copy, lacking the portrait frontispiece.
References: Wing A706. ESTC R61122..
Shipping Info: Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 3Kg
Tracked Shipping, Insurance Coverage as per Customer Request
SKU: BTETM0001543
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