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Aesop's Fables: A New Translation
From a renowned scholar and translator, the definitive translation of Aesop’s Fables
Aesop’s fables are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. Tales like “The Tortoise and the Hare,” “The Dog in the Manger,” and “Sour Grapes” have captivated us for generations. The fables delight us and teach timeless truths. Aesop’s tales offer us a world fundamentally simpler to ours—one with clear good and plain evil—but nonetheless one that is marked by political nuance and literary complexity.
Newly translated and annotated by renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, this definitive translation shines a new light on four hundred of Aesop’s most enduring fables.
Aesop’s fables are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. Tales like “The Tortoise and the Hare,” “The Dog in the Manger,” and “Sour Grapes” have captivated us for generations. The fables delight us and teach timeless truths. Aesop’s tales offer us a world fundamentally simpler to ours—one with clear good and plain evil—but nonetheless one that is marked by political nuance and literary complexity.
Newly translated and annotated by renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, this definitive translation shines a new light on four hundred of Aesop’s most enduring fables.
302 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 1, 2024
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About the author
Aesop
2,466 books1,102 followers620 BC - 564 BC
Tradition considers Greek fabulist Aesop as the author of Aesop's Fables , including "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Fox and the Grapes."
This credited ancient man told numerous now collectively known stories. None of his writings, if they ever existed, survive; despite his uncertain existence, people gathered and credited numerous tales across the centuries in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Generally human characteristics of animals and inanimate objects that speak and solve problems characterize many of the tales.
One can find scattered details of his life in ancient sources, including Aristotle, Herodotus, and Plutarch. An ancient literary work, called The Aesop Romance tells an episodic, probably highly fictional version of his life, including the traditional description of him as a strikingly ugly slave (δοῦλος), whose cleverness acquires him freedom as an adviser to kings and city-states. Older spellings of his name included Esop(e) and Isope. A later tradition, dating from the Middle Ages, depicts Aesop as a black Ethiopian. Depictions of Aesop in popular culture over the last two and a half millennia included several works of art and his appearance as a character in numerous books, films, plays, and television programs.
Abandoning the perennial image of Aesop as an ugly slave, the movie Night in Paradise (1946) cast Turhan Bey in the role, depicting Aesop as an advisor to Croesus, king; Aesop falls in love with a Persian princess, the intended bride of the king, whom Merle Oberon plays. Lamont Johnson also plays Aesop the Helene Hanff teleplay Aesop and Rhodope (1953), broadcast on hallmark hall of fame.
Brazilian dramatist Guilherme Figueiredo published A raposa e as uvas ("The Fox and the Grapes"), a play in three acts about the life of Aesop, in 1953; in many countries, people performed this play, including a videotaped production in China in 2000 under the title Hu li yu pu tao or 狐狸与葡萄 .
Beginning in 1959, animated shorts under the title Aesop and Son recurred as a segment in the television series Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, its successor. People abandoned the image of Aesop as ugly slave; Charles Ruggles voiced Aesop, a Greek citizen, who recounted for the edification of his son, Aesop Jr., who then delivered the moral in the form of an atrocious pun. In 1998, Robert Keeshan voiced him, who amounted to little more than a cameo in the episode "Hercules and the Kids" in the animated television series Hercules.
In 1971, Bill Cosby played him in the television production Aesop's Fables.
British playwright Peter Terson first produced the musical Aesop's Fables in 1983. In 2010, Mhlekahi Mosiea as Aesop staged the play at the Fugard theatre in Cape Town, South Africa.
Tradition considers Greek fabulist Aesop as the author of Aesop's Fables , including "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Fox and the Grapes."
This credited ancient man told numerous now collectively known stories. None of his writings, if they ever existed, survive; despite his uncertain existence, people gathered and credited numerous tales across the centuries in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Generally human characteristics of animals and inanimate objects that speak and solve problems characterize many of the tales.
One can find scattered details of his life in ancient sources, including Aristotle, Herodotus, and Plutarch. An ancient literary work, called The Aesop Romance tells an episodic, probably highly fictional version of his life, including the traditional description of him as a strikingly ugly slave (δοῦλος), whose cleverness acquires him freedom as an adviser to kings and city-states. Older spellings of his name included Esop(e) and Isope. A later tradition, dating from the Middle Ages, depicts Aesop as a black Ethiopian. Depictions of Aesop in popular culture over the last two and a half millennia included several works of art and his appearance as a character in numerous books, films, plays, and television programs.
Abandoning the perennial image of Aesop as an ugly slave, the movie Night in Paradise (1946) cast Turhan Bey in the role, depicting Aesop as an advisor to Croesus, king; Aesop falls in love with a Persian princess, the intended bride of the king, whom Merle Oberon plays. Lamont Johnson also plays Aesop the Helene Hanff teleplay Aesop and Rhodope (1953), broadcast on hallmark hall of fame.
Brazilian dramatist Guilherme Figueiredo published A raposa e as uvas ("The Fox and the Grapes"), a play in three acts about the life of Aesop, in 1953; in many countries, people performed this play, including a videotaped production in China in 2000 under the title Hu li yu pu tao or 狐狸与葡萄 .
Beginning in 1959, animated shorts under the title Aesop and Son recurred as a segment in the television series Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, its successor. People abandoned the image of Aesop as ugly slave; Charles Ruggles voiced Aesop, a Greek citizen, who recounted for the edification of his son, Aesop Jr., who then delivered the moral in the form of an atrocious pun. In 1998, Robert Keeshan voiced him, who amounted to little more than a cameo in the episode "Hercules and the Kids" in the animated television series Hercules.
In 1971, Bill Cosby played him in the television production Aesop's Fables.
British playwright Peter Terson first produced the musical Aesop's Fables in 1983. In 2010, Mhlekahi Mosiea as Aesop staged the play at the Fugard theatre in Cape Town, South Africa.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 9, 2024
In a Nutshell: A compilation of 400 of Aesop's fables, with a scholarly introduction to the same by the author. Interesting to classic fable readers but gets repetitive if you read it at a go.
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One of the first books in my life was a tiny little paperback collection of Aesop's Fables purchased from the school book fair. I had read my copy so many times during my childhood that it soon lost its binding cover. Seeing this collection was a journey into nostalgia land, the time of simple stories with important-sounding morals.
The first edition of Aesop’s fables in English was printed in as early as 1484! Aesop was a non-Greek slave who lived somewhere in Greece in the mid-6th century. It is impossible to know if he indeed was the author of all the fables attributed to him. As the introductory note says, “Just as authorship of numerous medical treatises that he certainly never wrote was attributed to Hippocrates, so any and all fables became ascribed to Aesop; the Greeks had a habit of doing this kind of thing.” Either way, Aesop was the pioneer responsible for making the fable widely known.
I'm sure all of us have read/heard at least a few of Aesop's stories. We might not know that he was the person behind the tales, but we do know the content. The Hare and the Tortoise, The Thirsty Crow, The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse, Who Will Bell the Cat, The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Lion and the Mouse... All these common childhood tales come from Aesop’s collection. He is said to have narrated/collected about 700 fables. 400 of those stories are in this book.
The tagline - “A New Translation” – is used because the author is a translator as well, and he has opted for a fresh translation of the fables from the original language, aiming for close fidelity to the native texts with readable, modern English.
The book begins with a detailed note by the author, introducing to us a brief history of Aesop's times, his life (or more accurately, modern guesstimates about his life), and his stories. It also contains a rather extensive and complicated analysis of the origin, purpose, and structure of fables, including why animals are commonly protagonists of fables. The author is a literary scholar and his writing is clearly aimed at literary-minded adult readers. While I started reading this section with interest, the length and the textbook-style writing soon made it somewhat tedious. But the author himself says, readers are free to skip the notes and jump straight to the fables.
The stories themselves are good, if you know what to expect from Aesop: pithy writing, allegorical content, life lessons. A massive chunk of the stories (306 out of 400, about 70% of the book) contains animal fables. The rest have human and godly characters in the lead.
The 400 fables are divided into sections based not on theme but on the main character. While I initially thought this to be a good organising method, I soon realised that this created much saturation while reading, especially when the section was about one specific animal such as fox or lion rather than a more generic “Animals at Work” or “Larger Mammals.” Reading 20 stories in a row about a wolf, for instance, means that the stories soon blend into each other.
A majority of the fables have an appended moral written in italics. I'm slightly unsure if the moral was penned by Aesop himself or added by the author because the differing tone and the breaking of the fourth wall was a bit confusing. Some of the morals left me stumped; no way I would have guessed THAT as the moral of the story. Unfortunately, many of the morals sounded the same after a point. This made the reading experience somewhat boring. It’s not like I was expecting 400 morals from 400 stories, but getting the same message time and again felt highly redundant.
Some of the stories *might* work as bedtime reads for children, but do be careful about which one you pick for such readalouds. Not all the tales are meant for children’s ears. (I was stunned to learn that Aesop’s stories were not originally written for children, and some tales even covered themes such as rape or incest.)
All in all, this didn’t exactly go as I had planned. Maybe some books are best left in childhood memories. But I can’t deny the effort put into this modern translation that clearly stays true to the soul of the original fables.
Recommended to those interested in fables and their history or in allegorical stories. Better if read at random than cover to cover.
3 stars.
My thanks to Basic Books for providing the DRC of “Aesop's Fables: A New Translation” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
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Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || X/Twitter || Facebook ||
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One of the first books in my life was a tiny little paperback collection of Aesop's Fables purchased from the school book fair. I had read my copy so many times during my childhood that it soon lost its binding cover. Seeing this collection was a journey into nostalgia land, the time of simple stories with important-sounding morals.
The first edition of Aesop’s fables in English was printed in as early as 1484! Aesop was a non-Greek slave who lived somewhere in Greece in the mid-6th century. It is impossible to know if he indeed was the author of all the fables attributed to him. As the introductory note says, “Just as authorship of numerous medical treatises that he certainly never wrote was attributed to Hippocrates, so any and all fables became ascribed to Aesop; the Greeks had a habit of doing this kind of thing.” Either way, Aesop was the pioneer responsible for making the fable widely known.
I'm sure all of us have read/heard at least a few of Aesop's stories. We might not know that he was the person behind the tales, but we do know the content. The Hare and the Tortoise, The Thirsty Crow, The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse, Who Will Bell the Cat, The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Lion and the Mouse... All these common childhood tales come from Aesop’s collection. He is said to have narrated/collected about 700 fables. 400 of those stories are in this book.
The tagline - “A New Translation” – is used because the author is a translator as well, and he has opted for a fresh translation of the fables from the original language, aiming for close fidelity to the native texts with readable, modern English.
The book begins with a detailed note by the author, introducing to us a brief history of Aesop's times, his life (or more accurately, modern guesstimates about his life), and his stories. It also contains a rather extensive and complicated analysis of the origin, purpose, and structure of fables, including why animals are commonly protagonists of fables. The author is a literary scholar and his writing is clearly aimed at literary-minded adult readers. While I started reading this section with interest, the length and the textbook-style writing soon made it somewhat tedious. But the author himself says, readers are free to skip the notes and jump straight to the fables.
The stories themselves are good, if you know what to expect from Aesop: pithy writing, allegorical content, life lessons. A massive chunk of the stories (306 out of 400, about 70% of the book) contains animal fables. The rest have human and godly characters in the lead.
The 400 fables are divided into sections based not on theme but on the main character. While I initially thought this to be a good organising method, I soon realised that this created much saturation while reading, especially when the section was about one specific animal such as fox or lion rather than a more generic “Animals at Work” or “Larger Mammals.” Reading 20 stories in a row about a wolf, for instance, means that the stories soon blend into each other.
A majority of the fables have an appended moral written in italics. I'm slightly unsure if the moral was penned by Aesop himself or added by the author because the differing tone and the breaking of the fourth wall was a bit confusing. Some of the morals left me stumped; no way I would have guessed THAT as the moral of the story. Unfortunately, many of the morals sounded the same after a point. This made the reading experience somewhat boring. It’s not like I was expecting 400 morals from 400 stories, but getting the same message time and again felt highly redundant.
Some of the stories *might* work as bedtime reads for children, but do be careful about which one you pick for such readalouds. Not all the tales are meant for children’s ears. (I was stunned to learn that Aesop’s stories were not originally written for children, and some tales even covered themes such as rape or incest.)
All in all, this didn’t exactly go as I had planned. Maybe some books are best left in childhood memories. But I can’t deny the effort put into this modern translation that clearly stays true to the soul of the original fables.
Recommended to those interested in fables and their history or in allegorical stories. Better if read at random than cover to cover.
3 stars.
My thanks to Basic Books for providing the DRC of “Aesop's Fables: A New Translation” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || X/Twitter || Facebook ||
September 18, 2024
The star rating is not a reflection on the translation in any way.
I guess the difficulty with Aesop is that he is believed to have been an exceptionally ugly slave who seemed to think that we should simply accept our lot in life and not question our "betters".
Some of the Fables are well known but others were a bit of a revelation. Suffice to say I didn't find a lot of them particularly useful for today's society and the less said about the ones regarding homosexuality the better.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Basic Books for the advance review copy.
I guess the difficulty with Aesop is that he is believed to have been an exceptionally ugly slave who seemed to think that we should simply accept our lot in life and not question our "betters".
Some of the Fables are well known but others were a bit of a revelation. Suffice to say I didn't find a lot of them particularly useful for today's society and the less said about the ones regarding homosexuality the better.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Basic Books for the advance review copy.
December 28, 2025
It's not really known for sure anything in particular about Aesop or if he even wrote all of these stories, but if he was a Greek or Ethiopian slave he sold out.
These are pretty contradictory stories, but the majority are about how the elites are really useful even if they don't seem like it and like don't even try to be as good as them actually. It makes me want to assume this was just another rich Greek asshole thinking for a living.
Could this be one of the first references of men telling women to "choose better" when men lie to them and fuck up their lives? I also love how women are sometimes used as proxies for being inferior, and they like being raped actually.
He's also got something to say about homosexuality, like we don't all know what was going on in those bathhouses.
I'd like to make a comparison to the Protestant Bible (I'm not knowledgeable enough in other Bibles to say one way or the other on those), actually. Not on religious grounds, but just the fact that anyone can find a story in here to support whatever previous belief they already have and set aside the rest or rationalize it's just not applicable anymore.
That being said, there's a reason that tales such as "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" are still told. They're classics with little kernels that apply even today.
These are pretty contradictory stories, but the majority are about how the elites are really useful even if they don't seem like it and like don't even try to be as good as them actually. It makes me want to assume this was just another rich Greek asshole thinking for a living.
Could this be one of the first references of men telling women to "choose better" when men lie to them and fuck up their lives? I also love how women are sometimes used as proxies for being inferior, and they like being raped actually.
He's also got something to say about homosexuality, like we don't all know what was going on in those bathhouses.
I'd like to make a comparison to the Protestant Bible (I'm not knowledgeable enough in other Bibles to say one way or the other on those), actually. Not on religious grounds, but just the fact that anyone can find a story in here to support whatever previous belief they already have and set aside the rest or rationalize it's just not applicable anymore.
That being said, there's a reason that tales such as "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" are still told. They're classics with little kernels that apply even today.
October 22, 2024
My thanks to NetGalley and Basic Books for an ARC of this title.
Although not originally penned for children, Aesop’s famed fables have been used since their earliest circulation as a source of moral education. They were included in the earliest primary and Sunday school readers as public education developed. I don’t know if children are still exposed to these stories, of which there are too many editions to count, including those specifically made child-friendly. For me, a baby boom kid, they have long been a favourite that I remember from my earliest reading. My children and grandchildren have enjoyed their own copies.
This most recent compilation is actually a fresh translation by Robin Waterfield, a leading British classicist, translator, and writer and an expert on Aesop (who may not be a real historical figure, as he notes) It is not aimed at children either. But it’s not overlain with the kind of scholarly language that would make it a slog for those less schooled in the subject. It is a rich and beautiful book that features a selection of 400 (of about 700 fables attributed to Aesop), many with repeat characters, themes and morals. This is exactly how our ancestors socialized the young, and remains the primary technique for early childhood education—the repetition of simple lessons through stories they can relate to, or that spark the imagination. Some of those reprinted here are not suitable for bedtime reading aloud, but that is true of most ‘children’s literature’ until very recently—like the ‘fairy tales’ of the brothers Grimm. The point was not how the story was recounted, but the underlying moral.
Waterfield’s introduction and contextualization are models for how to go about it. He summarizes what is known about Aesop and his fables while adding new interpretations and insights drawn from his own scholarship and that of others.
In my view, this is a book that belongs on every shelf, whether you are new to the fables or happily revisiting them.
Although not originally penned for children, Aesop’s famed fables have been used since their earliest circulation as a source of moral education. They were included in the earliest primary and Sunday school readers as public education developed. I don’t know if children are still exposed to these stories, of which there are too many editions to count, including those specifically made child-friendly. For me, a baby boom kid, they have long been a favourite that I remember from my earliest reading. My children and grandchildren have enjoyed their own copies.
This most recent compilation is actually a fresh translation by Robin Waterfield, a leading British classicist, translator, and writer and an expert on Aesop (who may not be a real historical figure, as he notes) It is not aimed at children either. But it’s not overlain with the kind of scholarly language that would make it a slog for those less schooled in the subject. It is a rich and beautiful book that features a selection of 400 (of about 700 fables attributed to Aesop), many with repeat characters, themes and morals. This is exactly how our ancestors socialized the young, and remains the primary technique for early childhood education—the repetition of simple lessons through stories they can relate to, or that spark the imagination. Some of those reprinted here are not suitable for bedtime reading aloud, but that is true of most ‘children’s literature’ until very recently—like the ‘fairy tales’ of the brothers Grimm. The point was not how the story was recounted, but the underlying moral.
Waterfield’s introduction and contextualization are models for how to go about it. He summarizes what is known about Aesop and his fables while adding new interpretations and insights drawn from his own scholarship and that of others.
In my view, this is a book that belongs on every shelf, whether you are new to the fables or happily revisiting them.
March 11, 2024
Thank you Netgalley for this ARC
An excellent new translation, Robin Waterfield's cherry-picked collection of 400 Aesop's Fables makes for an interesting reading experience. As someone who grew up reading the whimsical fairy tale versions of Aesop's Fables frequently retold in children's books, revisiting the fables was a cathartic and enjoyable experience. Waterfield's translation makes for an excellent gateway into revisiting the classic fables through an adult perspective, as it removes the more childlike interpretations of the stories aimed towards children.
Revisiting Aesop's Fables for the first time since I became a student of ancient history was also an interesting experience, too. When I read the fables as a child, I wasn't aware of their roots in Antiquity, but after thoroughly studying the Mediterranean's ancient history, Waterfield's selection of fables is highly enlightening. The fables chosen by Waterfield often reflect the intrinsic nature and paradigms of Classical society and offer a deeper insight into the beliefs and morals of these societies. I ultimately envision this book being a staple of any historian's bookshelf, especially those focused on the lifestyle and religious mythos of Greece. Especially with that gorgeous cover art!
Ultimately I gave Waterfield's Aesop's Fables 4/5 stars. While I did enjoy revisiting these tales, it's not my usual kind of book, and I ultimately believe that it was geared towards a different audience than me. Still, I applaud Waterfield on his translation, and deeply appreciated the attached further readings list and selection of translated works.
An excellent new translation, Robin Waterfield's cherry-picked collection of 400 Aesop's Fables makes for an interesting reading experience. As someone who grew up reading the whimsical fairy tale versions of Aesop's Fables frequently retold in children's books, revisiting the fables was a cathartic and enjoyable experience. Waterfield's translation makes for an excellent gateway into revisiting the classic fables through an adult perspective, as it removes the more childlike interpretations of the stories aimed towards children.
Revisiting Aesop's Fables for the first time since I became a student of ancient history was also an interesting experience, too. When I read the fables as a child, I wasn't aware of their roots in Antiquity, but after thoroughly studying the Mediterranean's ancient history, Waterfield's selection of fables is highly enlightening. The fables chosen by Waterfield often reflect the intrinsic nature and paradigms of Classical society and offer a deeper insight into the beliefs and morals of these societies. I ultimately envision this book being a staple of any historian's bookshelf, especially those focused on the lifestyle and religious mythos of Greece. Especially with that gorgeous cover art!
Ultimately I gave Waterfield's Aesop's Fables 4/5 stars. While I did enjoy revisiting these tales, it's not my usual kind of book, and I ultimately believe that it was geared towards a different audience than me. Still, I applaud Waterfield on his translation, and deeply appreciated the attached further readings list and selection of translated works.
April 11, 2024
In Robin Waterfield's new translation of Aesop's Fables, readers are presented with a comprehensive collection of 400 timeless narratives. Departing from the simplistic renditions often prevalent in children's literature, Waterfield's interpretation delves deeper, uncovering the enduring wisdom inherent in these tales.
Reflecting on my initial encounter with Aesop's Fables during childhood, I am reminded of these stories' profound impact on shaping my moral compass. The principles of honesty, kindness, and perseverance instilled by these fables have persisted into my adult life, guiding me through the complexities of modern society.
This collection of 400 tales offers readers a window into the past. By contextualizing the fables within the ancient Mediterranean milieu, Waterfield provides invaluable insights into the cultural ethos and ethical values of the time.
Their moral teachings remain as relevant today as they were centuries ago. In a contemporary world often fraught with moral ambiguity, Aesop's timeless wisdom serves as a beacon, illuminating the virtues of integrity, compassion, and humility and guaranteeing their enduring resonance for future generations.
My thanks to Basic Books and NetGalley for granting this e-ARC.
Reflecting on my initial encounter with Aesop's Fables during childhood, I am reminded of these stories' profound impact on shaping my moral compass. The principles of honesty, kindness, and perseverance instilled by these fables have persisted into my adult life, guiding me through the complexities of modern society.
This collection of 400 tales offers readers a window into the past. By contextualizing the fables within the ancient Mediterranean milieu, Waterfield provides invaluable insights into the cultural ethos and ethical values of the time.
Their moral teachings remain as relevant today as they were centuries ago. In a contemporary world often fraught with moral ambiguity, Aesop's timeless wisdom serves as a beacon, illuminating the virtues of integrity, compassion, and humility and guaranteeing their enduring resonance for future generations.
My thanks to Basic Books and NetGalley for granting this e-ARC.
April 17, 2024
Thanks to Waterfield's efforts, a list of Aesop's fables is categorized into groups based on the characters they feature, allowing you to easily sense patterns with messages and meanings associated with each animal or animal group and what messages or values are highly sought-after based on the frequency of reappearances. Waterfield's commentary emphasises the fables' messages, all centred around virtue ethics. The new translation also allows you to appreciate the comedicness and charm of these fables. My main gripe, though this may be more with Aesop (if he's even real, as Waterfield posited), is that many stories have the same message featuring one or more of the same set of animals or beings. Redundancy has its place in aiding recall and creating emphasis, but there may be too many within this collection to retain my interest the whole way through. Otherwise, a commendable effort.
Thanks to Netgalley and Basic Books for providing me with the e-ARC/DRC in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to Netgalley and Basic Books for providing me with the e-ARC/DRC in exchange for an honest review.
March 26, 2024
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.
"Aesop's Fables: A New Translation" by Robin Waterfield breathes new life into the ancient and timeless tales that have been a cornerstone of moral education for centuries. Waterfield, a renowned scholar, presents a collection that is both faithful to the spirit of Aesop's original narratives and refreshingly modern in its clarity.
The fables, known for their simplicity and depth, are presented with a new layer of nuance that invites readers to delve deeper into the allegories. The translation is crisp and accessible, making the wisdom of Aesop available to a contemporary audience without losing the charm and wit that have made these stories beloved around the world.
"Aesop's Fables: A New Translation" by Robin Waterfield breathes new life into the ancient and timeless tales that have been a cornerstone of moral education for centuries. Waterfield, a renowned scholar, presents a collection that is both faithful to the spirit of Aesop's original narratives and refreshingly modern in its clarity.
The fables, known for their simplicity and depth, are presented with a new layer of nuance that invites readers to delve deeper into the allegories. The translation is crisp and accessible, making the wisdom of Aesop available to a contemporary audience without losing the charm and wit that have made these stories beloved around the world.
April 16, 2024
This book made me so nostalgic and took me back to my childhood.
Me and my brother are avid readers, have been since we were children. Have always been I don't even remember since how long. In India we get Panchatantra which we can say is india's version of fables which are as old as 200 BCE.
It always amazes me how the literature lasts ages and ages and become ageless and imperishable. The reason is why I love classics.
The translation of Aesop's fables was good.. There are about 400 short stories and all have something to offer, something to teach us.
Highly recommended.
Thank you Netgalley and basic books for the ARC in exchange of an honest review.
Me and my brother are avid readers, have been since we were children. Have always been I don't even remember since how long. In India we get Panchatantra which we can say is india's version of fables which are as old as 200 BCE.
It always amazes me how the literature lasts ages and ages and become ageless and imperishable. The reason is why I love classics.
The translation of Aesop's fables was good.. There are about 400 short stories and all have something to offer, something to teach us.
Highly recommended.
Thank you Netgalley and basic books for the ARC in exchange of an honest review.
March 25, 2024
I do enjoy fables, especially from ancient Greece, so I know I would enjoy this book.
However, I found that a lot of the fables were related, but with different characters involved. This actually bored me somewhat, and made it difficult to read. My other critique is the explanations of the fables. I agree with some of the meanings behind them, and although I appreciate the authors translation, I prefer to come to my own conclusion.
I received this book as an ARC in return for an honest review.
However, I found that a lot of the fables were related, but with different characters involved. This actually bored me somewhat, and made it difficult to read. My other critique is the explanations of the fables. I agree with some of the meanings behind them, and although I appreciate the authors translation, I prefer to come to my own conclusion.
I received this book as an ARC in return for an honest review.
September 12, 2024
3.40 - Mediocre
Monotonous fables that lack thoughtful prose and vibrant messages. Uninspiring commonplace of virtue ethics. Redundant with demoralizing narration. Stoic and intrinsic in nature. Ventures within wisdom in a forthright manner. Subtly is placed sparingly. Illuminates a morality in humanity. Exhibits a crisp memory of studious curiosity. Recommended for those versed in morals and allegories.
Monotonous fables that lack thoughtful prose and vibrant messages. Uninspiring commonplace of virtue ethics. Redundant with demoralizing narration. Stoic and intrinsic in nature. Ventures within wisdom in a forthright manner. Subtly is placed sparingly. Illuminates a morality in humanity. Exhibits a crisp memory of studious curiosity. Recommended for those versed in morals and allegories.
"Evil exists on earth as a result of malice, which rejoices when others suffer undeservedly, and in its folly gleefully desires to harm itself as well."
March 21, 2024
Every library should contain a book of Aesop's Fables. Everyone I know has read at least a few of the fables and found them so good that they share with friends and family. This volume contains 400 of the family favorites. They bring back memories of reading when I was young and discovering reading for pleasure. This is an excellent gift to yourself or someone you love. Build your new memories today.
September 30, 2024
The fables were interesting enough. The book is definitely not meant to be read straight through in one or two sittings. It's better read in bits and pieces.
I received an ARC copy from NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.
I received an ARC copy from NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.
November 18, 2024
Robin Waterfield's new annotated translation contains 400 of Aesop's fables, in beautifully clear English, which provide a treasure house of ancient moral wisdom and curious tales.
November 17, 2025
I mean, it's Aesop. Clever, acid-tongued, sometimes consoling. Classics for a reason. Lots of weird stuff about trans hyenas.
October 1, 2024
even knowing that aesop's fables are short, i failed to realised exactly HOW short they were. not all of these have morals which is the defining trait of a fable however some gave me a little huff of a laugh some were ust alright.
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