'I faintly remember going through Aesop's Fables, the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, which I remember better, was the second.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Stuart Mill Print: Book
'Maybe to neutralise the Penny Dreadful, Cassells brought out the Penny Classics. These had a bluish-green cover and were world famous novels in abridged form, but sixty or seventy pages. And W.T. Stead brought out the Penny Poets. The covers of these were pimply surface-paper, a bright orange colour, and they contained selections from Longfellow, Tennyson, Keats, and many others. I first read "Hiawatha" and "Evangeline" in the Penny Poets and thought them marvellous; so marvellous that I began to write 'poetry' myself. Stead also brought out another penny book; this had a pink cover and contained selections from the ancient classics: stories from Homer, the writings of Pliny the younger, Aesop's "Fables". I took a strong fancy to Aesop, he was a Greek slave from Samos, in the sixth century BC, and workpeople were only just beginning to be called "wage slaves". I read all these; non-selective and Catholic my reading...'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Stamper Print: Book
'So home and read to my wife a Fable or two in Ogleby's "Aesop"; and so to supper and then to prayers and to bed'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
[italics]'S. Livy p.532 - Cumis, (adeo minimis etiam rebum prava religio inserit Deos) mures in aede Jovis aurum rosisse 556. 2 vol. Maie says that if we had met the Emperor Julian in private life he would have appeared a very ordinary man The fables of Aesop in Greek. - Boethius consolation of philosophy - how in the reign of Theodoric [underlined] a Christian? [end underlining] gr - Lord Bacon's works - Gibbon likes Boethius - [end italics] Mary reads Gibbon (100).'
[italic text is by PBS, non-italic by MG]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'I read a little Byron for my own amusement then a number of Aesop's Fables for the amusement of the youngsters. The evening seemed quite short in consequence of the employment & I was still busy reading when Polly & Sissy got back'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buckley Castieau Print: Book
‘... The ancient fables attributed to Aesop, Phaedrus, Pilpay, Avienus etc., are emblems
or...allegories rather than Fables, most probably suggested by the Zoographic Hieroglyhics of
Aegypt. The Lion, the Fox, the Ass, etc., are mere pictures of abstract qualities, as power, craft,
stupidity. ...’
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Book