Fables de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine, illustrated by J.J. Grandville
Paris: H. Fournier aȋné
1838
Vanderbilt University Special Collections
Grandville reacted to the French government re-installation of censorship and betrayal of the free press, joining the tradition of Jacques Callot (from Nancy also) and his contemporary satirist Honoré Daumier. Grandville was refered to as the King of Caricature and the French Hogarth. By 1835, with the censorship laws reinstated, more arrests, and government shut downs of the journals, Grandville looked toward book illustration and a more universal message about political and social freedoms.
The Fables by Jean de La Fontaine, combined Grandville’s talent as a caricaturist with La Fontaine’s satirical anthropomorphic tales, and was reissued many times in the 19th century.