8vo. [10], 140pp. Without half-title. With an engraved frontispiece and a further 17 engraved plates. Contemporary gilt-tooled black half-morocco, marbled paper boards, marbled edges. A trifle rubbed. Marbled endpapers, offsetting, scattered spotting.

A first edition of sixteen fables, with engravings, by William Wilkie (1721-1772), Church of Scotland minister and Professor of Natural Philosophy at St Andrews. Nicknamed 'Potato Willie', he was known more reputably as the 'Scottish Homer', publishing in 1757 The Epigoniad, based on the fourth book of the Iliad.