Aesop and Hyssop
Being Fables Adapted and Original with the Morals Carefully Formulated

By William Ellery Leonard
Rare Association Copy, and First Edition
With an Original Advertisement for Books by William E. Leonard

12mo (7-3/4 ins.) Grey cloth boards with black ink decoration on front and spine. Published by The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, 1912. This is a first edition. The cover has a detailed depiction of the fable 'The Fox and the Crow'. The spine has a duck, a frog, a cat, and a mouse. There are 158 pages, including a dedication, preface, and an epilogue; all written in verse.


The Preface:

Children, old Plato tells how Socrates,
Condemned to death, in prison took his ease,
By turning Aesop's Fables all the day
Into some homely verses. In this way,
I too, a lesser man than he, in pain
And, as it were, in prison, try again
His remedy for sorrow (for of late
I lost forevermore my friend and mate,
And need a little smiling). So you see
Wise Aesop set to homely rhymes by me.
And I'll be glad if in this exercise,
Begun for my own easement, your young eyes
Find something for instruction and surprise.