AN ECLECTIC LIBRARY.

Reynard the Fox.

Various versions of the famous History of Reynard the Fox in English.

The History of Reynard the Fox, from the Edition Printed by Caxton in 1481. With notes, and an introductory sketch of the literary history of the romance, by William J. Thoms, Esq., F.S.A. 1844. —This edition is slightly expurgated, but otherwise spelled as Caxton printed it.
(Another copy.)

The Most Pleasing and Delightful History of Reynard the Fox, and Reynardine his Son. In Two Parts. With the Morals to each chapter explaining what appears doubtful or allegorical. And every chapter illustrated with a curious device, or picture, representing to the eye all the material passages. Done in the most refined English. London, 1697. —The reader may judge from the first chapter alone whether the English of this edition is in any way more refined than Caxton's.

The Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox. Edited by F. S., and illustrated with twenty-four pictures by Aldert Van Everdingen. Published in Felix Summerly's Home Treasury by Joseph Cundall, Westminster, 1846. —For some strange reason the first paragraph of the first chapter introduces the long S, though not universally, and after that paragraph it seems to retire again into the dusty typecase from which it came.
(Another copy.)


The Story of Reynard the Fox. A new version by David Vedder. Illustrated by Gustav Canton of Munich and Dusseldorf. 1856. —Gorgeous engravings, and a beautiful example of the best in Victorian printing. We were not aware until this moment that Gustav Canton shared St. Thomas Aquinas' ability to bilocate.

The Story of Reynard the Fox. With six illustrations taken from the Stuffed Animals contributed by Herrmann Ploucquet of Stuttgart to the Great Exhibition. London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1861.

The Story of Reynard the Fox. With six illustrations from designs by Kaulbach. New York, 1861. —The illustrations are hand-colored; they look as though they may be inferior copies of European originals by American engravers. (In fact, as we have just discovered, they are bad copies of the engravings in the London edition above.)

The Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox. Translated by the late Thomas Roscoe. Illustrated with nearly one hundred designs by A. T. Elwes and John Jellicoe. 1873. —Superb and very funny engravings.


The History of Reynard the Fox, with some account of his friends and enemies, turned into English verse by F. S. Ellis, with illustrative devices by Walter Crane. David Nutt, 1897. —The verse is charming and could easily pass for something from the late Middle Ages; the book is beautifully decorated by the man who literally wrote the book on the decorative illustration of books.
(Another copy.)
(Another copy.)
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The same, in an 1894 edition, without the introductory essay.

Reynard the Fox. An early apologue of renown, clad in English dress, fashioned according to the German model supplied by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, by John Storer Cobb. With Canton's illustrations. Boston: Old Corner Bookstore, 1899. —An imitation of Goethe's hexameter in English.

Reynard the Fox. Pictured by J. J. Mora. Boston: Dana Estes & Co., 1901. —In rhyming couplets, breezier but not nearly as charming as the Ellis version above.

Reynard the Fox. Adapted by E. Louise Smythe. American Book Company, 1903. —With charming engravings. This version is meant as a child's first reading book, and it would be hard to find a better book for the purpose.


Reynard the Fox. Edited by Thos. Cartwright, 1908. Part of the "Every Child's Library" series. —Taken very faithfully from Caxton's edition, with modernized spelling but few modernizations in vocabulary. Includes first-rate color illustrations.


Ysengrimus. Herausgegeben und erklärt von Ernst Voigt. 1884. (At archive.org.) —The Latin mock-epic in which Reynard makes his first known literary appearance, with introduction in German.