Aesop's Fables
1848
- fables
- animals
- great_books_of_the_western_world
- open_syllabus_project
- children's stories
- juvenile literature
- children: babies toddlers
- greek fables
- translations into english
- adaptations
The story
Aesop fables are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE.
What it’s like
Short, spare moral tales in plain, brisk prose, each over in a page or two, so the book reads like a stack of small lamplit parables to dip into rather than a sustained immersion. The world is a bare, sun-baked countryside of fields, wells, foxes, crows and ploughing oxen, with little in the way of description and everything pared down to a single clear action and its consequence. Its vibe is gentle, wry and faintly old-fashioned: the calm of a storyteller's voice speaking to a child at bedtime, or a few fables read aloud over an afternoon cup of tea. The tone is dry humour rather than drama, with characters who are vain, greedy, clever or foolish and who get their comeuppance without much cruelty; there are no wars, no gore, and the occasional sharp sting in a sly ending is the nearest the book comes to menace. Pacing is quick and episodic, so it suits short reading sessions, a rainy afternoon, or reading in fragments before sleep. It is written for anyone who wants something gentle, witty and brief, from young children hearing their first stories to adults returning to a classic with a wry smile.
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