GAY, John. Fables by the late Mr Gay. In One Volume Complete.

GAY, John. Fables by the late Mr Gay. In One Volume Complete. London: J. and B. Tonson. 1767.

8vo. Contemporary sprinkled calf, gilt red morocco lettering-piece to spine, borders double-filleted in gilt, speckled edges; pp. 192, engraved frontispiece and 66 engraved plates; light offsetting from plates (heavier to title, endpapers, and frontispiece), sporadic very light spotting; nonetheless a handsome copy; later ink ownership inscription ‘R. Palin’ to front free endpaper.

An uncommon and highly illustrated edition of Gay’s (1685–1732) popular Fables, written in 1725 for the four-year old Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the youngest son of King George II later known as the ‘Butcher of Culloden’.

The Fables were published in two parts, in 1727 and posthumously 1738, the latter with a political bent; the present volume collects both, each illustrated with a handsome engraving. ‘Gay's Fables, much delayed by waiting for Wootton and Kent to print the plates, were finally published in March 1727, and have had long-running success, going through more than 350 editions, mostly before 1900. Their popularity relies less on ironic wit than on their anthropomorphic and proverbial charm, but at court his female friends were delighted’ (ODNB).

Perhaps the most famous of Gay’s Fables are ‘The Hare’ – with the moral ‘Who depend on many, rarely find a friend’ – and ‘The Ravens, the Sexton and the Earth Worm’, in which an earthworm pontificates on the theme of death at the graveside of a dead horse.

ESTC finds three copies of this edition in the UK (BL, Bridgnorth, Exeter Central), and five in the US (Bowdoin, Harvard, Huntington, Illinois, Yale).

ESTC T13847.

SKU: 2121285