Aesop's Fables

About this book

Attributed to a Greek storyteller of around 600 BC · Among the oldest stories still in print · This English edition published 1912

The fables are far older than any printed book. They are attributed to Aesop, a storyteller said to have lived in Greece around 600 BC and, by tradition, to have been a slave. Little about him can be established as fact, and it is likely that his name gathered up many tales already passing by word of mouth. For centuries the stories were told aloud before they were ever written down.

What survived is one of the most widely shared collections of stories anywhere. The tortoise and the hare, the fox and the grapes, the boy who cried wolf: these short animal tales have been translated the world over and used to teach children for more than two thousand years. Several everyday phrases, among them sour grapes and crying wolf, come straight from them.

The text here is a 1912 English translation, an illustrated edition offered through Project Gutenberg.

Chapters

A long one: read it a chapter a night.

1. Introduction
2. The Old Woman and the Doctor
3. Mercury and the Woodman
4. The Goods and the Ills
5. The Stag in the Ox-Stall
6. The Milkmaid and Her Pail
7. The Ass and the Lap-Dog
8. The Frogs' Complaint Against the Sun
9. The Slave and the Lion
10. The Apes and the Two Travellers
11. The Ass and His Burdens
12. The Fox and the Goat
13. The Dog and the Cook
14. The Owl and the Birds
15. The Swollen Fox
16. The Frogs Asking for a King
17. Hercules and the Waggoner
18. The Rich Man and the Tanner
19. The Clown and the Countryman
20. The Hound and the Hare
21. The Wolf and the Crane
22. The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
23. The Lion and the Bull
24. The Cobbler Turned Doctor
25. The Flea and the Ox
26. The Man and His Two Sweethearts
27. The Wolf and the Boy
28. The Thief and the Innkeeper
29. The Ass and His Masters
30. The Fox and the Grasshopper
31. The Shepherd and the Wolf
32. The Wolf and the Horse
33. The Eagle and the Beetle
34. The Weasel and the Man
35. The Monkey and the Dolphin
36. The Rose and the Amaranth
37. The Dogs and the Hides
38. The Eagle and the Fox
39. The Quack Doctor
40. The Fox and the Snake
41. Grief and His Due
42. The Woman and the Farmer
43. The Goatherd and the Wild Goats

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