REYNARD THE FOX
Reyneke Voss de olde nye gedrucket, mit sidlykem vorstande unde schonen Figuren erlúchtet undt vorbetert.
(Rostock, Stephan Mölleman, 1592)
4to. In contemporary limp vellum. Extremities with light soiling and miscolouring. Front free end-paper annotated in contemporary hand. Three leaves (T-Tiii) with repairs with loss of text and woodcut. Title-page and colophone supplied in facsimilie. Internally with light occassional browning but in general good condition. 272 ff (f. 272 erroneously printed as f. 273) with 44 woodcut illustrations in text.
Later Rostock edition of the famous epic. Circulating from the 12th-century and derived in part from Aesop, Reynard the Fox is one of the most popular and enduring beast-epics. Reynard the Fox is a collection of fables that originated in medieval Europe, and the exact authorship is unknown. The stories were likely passed down orally before being written down in various versions over the centuries. The fables, with the wily fox as a central character, lent themselves to satire and it became a vehicle used by the Protestant reformers and others. The Low-German version first appeared at Lubeck in 1498 and the Rostock editions which followed from 1517 facilitated the spread of the epic towards the east.
The woodcuts had previously illustrated the 1539 Rostock edition, of which 36 are attributed to Erhard Altdorfer. Stylistically they depend on the first Lubeck and Rostock editions.
Order-nr.: 60391
DKK 12.000,00