Aesop. The Fables of Aesop paraphras'd in Verse...by John Ogilby, first edition of Ogilby's translation, imprimatur leaf, engraved additional title with portrait of Ogilby, frontispiece of Aesop with animals and 80 plates by Francis Cleyn (numbered 1-81 but plates 14/15 on one sheet), contemporary ink signature of John ?Cunnage to verso of title and a few other leaves, a little soiled and stained, engraved title and frontispiece trimmed and laid down, 4H1 defective at lower outer corner with loss of a few words (repaired), several leaves frayed and reinforced at edges, modern calf, upper cover onlaid with vertical strips of blue and green roan, roan label, preserved in modern cloth folder and slip-case, [Wing A689], small 4to, by Thomas Warren for Andrew Crook, 1651.

⁂ "To call these versions paraphrases is misleading... they are original treatments of familiar themes. Ogilby gives free play to his imagination as he retells the fables with so many amplifications of homely detail and classical allusions that what would ordinarily have been eighty-one pages or a little more becomes two hundred and thirty-six" (Hodnett, Francis Barlow, First Master of English Book Illustration, p.79).