Aesop's Fables without drawing a moral. For many centuries the main transmission of Aesop's fables across Europe remained in Latin or else orally in various vernaculars, where they mixed with folk tales derived from other sources. This mixing is often apparent in early vernacular collections of fables in mediaeval times. The main impetus behind the translation of large collections of fables attributed to Aesop and translated into European languages came from an early printed publication in Germany. There had been many small selections in various languages during the Middle Ages but the first attempt at an exhaustive edition was made by Heinrich
99 Fables Press, with illustrations by Richard Brough. The cover won an award at the 1960 Southern Books Competition. Although the collection is among the most obscure of March's works, "99 Fables" stands as an almost complete picture of the world March inhabited: many of the complex themes that populate much of March's work are here restated in a more simplistic form. The editor of the collection, William T. Going, says, "The fables, then, come close to providing as personal a summary of March's world as we are likely to have. Here are all his favorite ideas, the epitomes of the themes