Phaedri, Augusti Liberti, Fabularum Aesopicarum Libri Quinque: Nova editio, cui accesserunt Publii Syri et aliorum Veterum Sententiae

Paris: Petrus Didot the Elder. Very Good with No dust jacket as issued. 1798. First Edition Thus. First Printing. Hard Cover. Publisher's green paper-covered boards, spine in seven compartments separated by gilt borders, gilt lettering in one compartment, gray endpapers, edges deckle. This stereotype edition of Phaedrus' version of Aesop's Fables includes all five books, and was published in Paris in Year VI of the Republic (1798). Gaius Julius Phaedrus was a 1st-century CE Roman fabulist and the first versifier of a collection of Aesop's fables into Latin. Few facts are known about him for certain and there was little mention of his work during late antiquity. It was not until the discovery of a few imperfect manuscripts during and following the Renaissance that his importance emerged, both as an author and in the transmission of the fables. Phaedrus is now recognized as the first writer to compile entire books of fables in Latin, retelling the Aesopic tales in senarii, a loose iambic metre. While most details of his life remain unknown, it is generally believed that he was born cir. 15 BCE, worked in Rome under Augustus and Tiberius, and died around the middle of the 1st century, CE, perhaps under Claudius. One legend has it that while he was born a slave, he was later freed by Augustus, (thus "Gaius Julius'). . Armorial bookplate of Thomas Weld-Blundell (1808-1887) on fep, slight wear at exterior hinges, but both hinges strong, books appears unread, remarkably fresh, unmarked, tight, square, and clean. The unusual vertical slipcase with its leather spine, also with a spine in seven compartments separated by gilt borders, with gilt lettering in four compartments, has kept the volume in quite pristine condition. VERY GOOD. . 12mo 7" - 7½" tall. 99 pp .