FABLES BY JOHN GAY; With a Life of the Author and Embellished with a Plate to Each Fable. [With a Life of John Gay by Samuel Johnson as derived from his Lives of the Poets]

London: Darton & Harvery for F. & C. Rivington, B & B. White, T. Longman, B.Law & Son, F.F. & J. Robinson, T. Cadell et. al, 1793. Two parts in One Volume as issued. First Edition Thus. Illustrated with engraved frontispiece, engraved title-page with vignette and an engraved illustration to every fable including 12 after designs by William Blake. 8vo, very handsomely bound in 18th century polished tree calf, the spine with multi-ruled gilt fillet lines separating the compartments, central gilt ornaments in each compartment, red morocco lettering label gilt, the covers with double gilt fillet lines at the borders enclosing roll tooled gilt key inner borders, turnovers gilt rolled, marbled endleaves. xvi, 256 pp. A very handsome copy with a bit of expected age mellowing, sometime expertly and unobtrusively restored at the back, the plates and text-block all well preserved. FIRST OF THE EDITION BY DARTON & HARVEY USING THE PLATES PRINTED BY STOCKDALE ISSUED HERE IN OVAL FORMAT. With a life of Gay by Dr. Samuel Johnson. Dedicated "To his Highness William, Duke of Cumberland, These New Fables, Invented for His Amusement, are humbly dedicated, by his Highness's most faithful, and most obediant servant, John Gay."
One of Gay’s best known works, the fables are not moral tales : “for a Fable he gives now and then a Tale or an abstracted Allegory; and from some, by whatever name they may be called, it will be difficiult to extract any moral principle. They are, however, told with liveliness; the versification is smooth; and the diction, though now and then a little constrained by the measure of the rhyme, is generally happy.” [Johnson]