2 volumes. xiv. [2], 268, 16; [2], viii, [2], 306, [3], [3 blank], 16 pp. Half-titles present. With 80 engraved plates after Charles Eisen, engraved by Aliamet, Baquoy, Choffard, Delafosse, Flipart, De Longueil, Le Mire, Lempereur, Le Vau, Ouvrier, and others. Frontispiece portraits engraved by Fiquet, of La Fontaine after Rigault and of Eisen after Vispre; etched title-page vignettes; 2 headpieces and 52 tailpieces by Choffard. (8vo) 18x11.5 cm. (7x4½") full mottled calf, rebacked with original gilt-tooled spines strips laid on, morocco lettering pieces, gilt inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.
The celebrated "Fermiers généraux" edition, commissioned by a group of wealthy tax collectors "determined that the book should be the best of its kind... Eisen's eighty designs for La Fontaine are the liveliest and most adroit that he ever drew" - Ray. His exquisite plates, engraved by the foremost engravers of the period, constitute the illustrator’s "chef-d’oeuvre" - Cohen. Cohen/de Ricci 558; Ray, French 26. Bookplates of Richard Land Freer on front pastedowns, along with shelf labels of the Pull Court Library.