The fox and the crow, the tortoise and the hare, the hen that laid the golden eggs - all of these familiar characters, and more, are present and accounted for in this complete translation of La Fontaine's fables. Runyon's translation is delightfully fresh and faithful to the original French. He brings new life to these timeless tales. "Dr. Randy Runyon brings La Fontaine's fables alive for a new generation of English readers. Moving from the rhyme-rich, late seventeenth-century French to rhyme-poor English, he employs the couplet to maintain surprising, apt and often humorous rhyme patterns throughout the twelve books of the fables. The wisdom and good sense of the fables is no surprise, the feeling, in this translation, that they are of and for our time is a surprise." James A. Perkins, Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Westminster College, and author of Decembers and The All-American, Coast-to-Coast, Icebox Poetry Anthology.