Fables by La Fontaine. With drawings by Gustave Doré. Paris, - Lot 49

Fables by La Fontaine. With drawings by Gustave Doré. Paris, France. Librairie de L. Hachette et Cie. 1868. Two folio volumes (26.7 x 36.5 cm) of LX-864 pp. Brown half-chagrin, percaline boards, spines with five small nerfs decorated with gilt fleurons. First edition of illustrations by Gustave Doré. As H. Leblanc (p. 206): "Eight plates being less well engraved than the others, the publisher has replaced them with eight new plates which were supplied free of charge to subscribers [...] These plates are never found in copies covered with the publisher's cartonnage." The binder has kept both versions here, so that these eight illustrations are in two versions, which is particularly interesting because, while two of them are simply a better state of the engraving, the other six present a new interpretation by Doré. These plates have been bound here at the head of the first volume and at the end of the second. Rousseurs.