Ivan Krylov

Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (1769–1844) began as a satirical journalist and playwright. He turned to fables in 1809, many adapted from La Fontaine and Aesop, and became Russia’s best-loved fabulist; from 1812 he worked at the Imperial Public Library in St Petersburg. Bowring printed two of his fables in the first part.

The versions here are by John Bowring, from his Specimens of the Russian Poets (Part the First, 1821; Part the Second, 1823), one of the first English anthologies of Russian verse. They are free, rhymed versions, and should be read as period translations rather than as literal renderings.