Aesop's Fables
Aesop c. 550 BCE
These short fables use talking animals and everyday encounters to show how people behave. A fox dismisses unreachable grapes as sour, turning disappointment into a sharp little story.
147 pages 2h 52m reading time
- The best-known collection of fables in the Western world, retold and taught to children for more than two thousand years.
- Shows that wisdom often beats strength, as when a slow, steady tortoise wins a race against a boastful hare.
- Ends many stories with a plain lesson, or moral, such as warning that a liar will not be believed even when telling the truth.
- Gave English many everyday phrases, including "sour grapes," "crying wolf," "the lion's share," and "a wolf in sheep's clothing."
- Shaped later fable writers across Europe, most famously the French poet Jean de La Fontaine, whose own fables drew heavily on these stories.
Retold by Socrates in prison
While awaiting his execution, the Greek thinker Socrates spent his last days turning some of these fables into verse.
Never written by Aesop
No writings by Aesop survive, and the fables were passed on by word of mouth for centuries.
Gathered by many hands
Over time, storytellers added fables from many places and credited them to Aesop.
Among first English books
William Caxton, who brought printing to England, published an English Aesop as one of his early printed books.
Translated from Greek by George Fyler Townsend 1867