Sidney G. Firman, who appears to have written a number of early twentieth-century children's primers for use in American schools, turns his attention here to the story of Reynard the Fox. His telling is based upon that of Joseph Jacobs' 1895 The Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox, which was in turn based upon Felix Summerly's version from 1846 (interestingly, Firman mentions Caxton in his introduction, but not Summerly). The language here is simplified, and although all of the major incidents of the fox's story are included - the episodes in which he tricks and hurts the other animals, and then defends himself against charges brought in the court of the lion king - the ending has been changed. In this telling, Reynard catches a cold, due to being shaved for his duel with the wolf, and eventually dies of his illness, repenting on his deathbed of his many transgressions...

Published in 1929, this telling of the story of Reynard the Fox was probably my least favorite, of any of the many ones I read during the course of my research for my masters dissertation, which examined three centuries of Reynard retellings for children in the Anglophone world. I found the text itself stilted, and sometimes vaguely absurd. The ending - "Day after day Reynard grew worse and worse. At last he died, but just before he died he said he was sorry he had been such a bad fox. He hoped his children would grow up to be good foxes" - struck me as unintentionally amusing, with its stiff and cliched moralizing, and its final illustrations of the fox's tombstone. Despite my personal indifference to it, the book was still quite interesting, chiefly because of that altered ending, and what it potentially says about expectations of children's books in the USA in the 1920s. The author claims in his introduction that the fox's eventual triumph is "out of keeping with present-day standards of morality," and that he must therefore change it. Based upon my research, it would seem that early 20th-century American educators struggled, much as their British counterparts did in the Victorian period, with the essential amorality of this story, and its vulpine hero. Leaving aside its interest as a historical record of changing ideas about morality in stories for children, I'm not sure this one has strong appeal. Recommended chiefly to determined Reynard fans, or to fans of Frederick Richardson, who contributed the illustrations. ( )