The Original Fables Of La Fontaine »

"The world is old, they say. Well, so it is! But it is as greedy for amusement as a child!"

The Happy Cobbler and his sad neighbor the Financier -- the Mouse in the Moon -- the Elephant and the Rat . . . Jean de La Fontaine found inspiration for his fables high and low, in society and nature, in history and fancy.

Born in Champagne, France, in 1621, La Fontaine published the fables that would grant him literary immortality in a series of books beginning in 1668, with the last appearing the year before his death in 1695. Their magic is nowhere more evident than here, in The Original Fables.