Acknowledgments; Introduction: The English fable; 1. Aesopiean examples: the English fable collection and its authors, 1651-1740; 2. 'The first pieces of wit': Augustan fable theory and the birth of the book; 3. Common and uncommon characters: the lives of Aesop; 4. Brutal transactions, 'mysterious writ': Aesop's fables and Dryden's later poetry; 5. In her 'transparent Laberynth': obstructions of poetic justice in Anne Finch's fables; 6. Risking contradiction: John Gay's Fables and the matter of reading; 7. The moral; Notes; Bibliography; Index.