98 - [LA FONTAINE (Jean de)].

[LA FONTAINE (Jean de)]. The Illustrations for La Fontaine’s Fables, engraved by Simon and Coiny. Paris: Simon and Coiny, Engravers, n.d. [circa 1785]. 8vo, sheepskin, decorated ribbed spine (contemporary binding). VERY FIRST EDITION, IN 8VO FORMAT, which was discontinued and OF WHICH ONLY A FEW COPIES WERE PRINTED. Production was halted at the end of the first volume of text (76 pp.) and after the 137th plate of the third volume of this edition, which was intended to comprise six volumes. This copy consists of six title pages, 39 fables, and 42 plates (with plates 4, 12, and 18 repeated), drawn by VIVIER, all “engraved in in-seize format [on] Dutch paper” by Mr. SIMON & Jacques Joseph COINY. Most of the print run of this edition was subsequently printed in six in-18-format volumes by Didot the Elder in 1787 and illustrated with 274 plates. Some slight foxing. “The text was to be entirely engraved, but the work was halted after the first Fables” (Cohen, 553–554); “A fine edition […] A few leaves had been engraved in small in-8° format; the publishers did not continue the work and contented themselves with typesetting the text, reducing it to in-18 ” (Rochambeau, 462, 1879, who describes a copy containing only six fables.)