The Complete Fables

Aesop

Penguin Books Limited, Mar 1, 1998 - Literary Criticism - 262 pages

This is the first translation ever to make available the complete corpus of 358 fables. Aesop was probably a prisoner of war, sold into slavery in the early sixth century BC, who represented his masters in court and negotiations and relied on animal stories to put across his key points. Such fables vividly reveal the strange superstitions of ordinary ancient Greeks, how they treated their pets, how they spoilt their sons and even what they kept in their larders. As these stories became well-known, 'Aesopic' one-liners were widely quoted at drinking-parties, and the collection eventually came to include more satirical tales of alien creatures - apes, camels, lions and elephants - which presumably originate in Libya and Egypt. All have now been brought together in this definitive and fully annotated modern edition.

What people are saying

Review: The Complete Fables (Penguin Classics)

User Review  - Ian Danger - Goodreads

Note: this is not a book to be read through once, this lives on the shelf with the reference books. To be opened at least once a week and in times of need. Used both wisely and irresponsibly. Although ...

Review: The Complete Fables (Penguin Classics)

User Review  - Riju Ganguly - Goodreads

Is there anybody who has NOT read these fables? If the answer is doubtful, then let me clarify the question further: has anybody ACTUALLY read ALL the Aesop's fables? I hadn't, until I got hold of ...

About the author

Aesop probably lived in the middle part of the sixth century BC. A statement in Herodotus gives ground for thinking that he was a slave belonging to a citizen of Samos called Iadmon. Legend says that he was ugly and misshapen. There are many references to Aesop found in the Athenian writers: Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle and others. It is not known whether he wrote down his Fables himself, nor indeed how many of them are correctly attributed to his invention.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Complete Fables; The Penguin classics
• Author: Aesop
• Editors: Aesop, Olivia Temple, Robert Temple
• Translated by: Olivia Temple, Robert Temple
• Contributors: Olivia Temple, Robert Temple
• Edition: annotated
• Publisher: Penguin Books Limited, 1998
• ISBN: 0140446494, 9780140446494
• Length: 262 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Literary Criticism / Ancient & Classical