"Aesop's Fables" (new edition published in 1941)
This edition of "Aesop's Fables" - published on the 2500th anniversary of Aesop's death (1941) - is dated. Therein lies its value. The introduction is very informative, letting readers know the myth behind the collector and storyteller Aesop who was a slave to the Greeks, circa 600 years B.C. However, despite the value of the stories in this collection (from my personal bookshelf), this isn't a book I'd recommend to someone who isn't an academic, scholar, or intellectually inclined... the stories are very reductive, always ending with "The Point --->" followed by a quick summary of the short story's moral, which is one or two pages length at the most. I found most of the stories hilarious, as the "points" were either entirely obvious or so far-fetched as to almost seem like jokes. The general theme of the fables seems to say: in a world where every man is for himself (although every "man" is in fact an animal withi...