Noted 19th-century folklorist and literary critic Joseph Jacobs, the editor of many collections of tales, turned in this 1895 volume to the medieval story of Reynard the Fox. Determined to "provide a text which children could read with ease and pleasure," he turned to the work of Felix Summerly (AKA Sir Henry Cole), and based his own telling on that author's 1846 The Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox. Jacobs' text is slightly altered, but in all of the major respects it follows the Summerly closely, chronicling all of the important incidents of the story, in which the wily fox triumphs against his many enemies, most especially, against Isegrim the wolf...

Because it follows the Summerly so closely, there was little that I found new or noteworthy in Jacobs' The Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox, when examined from a storytelling perspective. The chief interest for me, when I was conducting research for my masters dissertation, written on three centuries of Reynard retellings for children in the Anglophone world, was the scholarly introduction that Jacobs penned for the book. The melding of folkloric and literary styles in Reynard - the former providing much of the humor, the latter the satire - the influence of Aesopic fables on the story, these and other ideas are explored. I particularly liked what Jacobs had to say about the appeal of the Reynard story, and his statement that "Man may be the most interesting things to Man, but animals are more interesting to men of childlike mind." Perhaps this explains the popularity of the tale as a children's story, over the centuries, despite its many elements that might otherwise exclude it from such a use. Jacobs also has some astute things to say about the appeal of Reynard in general, and the way in which his story speaks to our instinctive sympathy for rebels and underdogs: "It is the adventurous, shifty, eponymous Hero who captures our interest. We have all a sneaking regard for the crafty villain who can control Circumstance... When brute force unblushingly ruled the world cunning was your only remedy against the tyrant." All in all, a Reynard retelling worth seeking out, if one is interested in the story. I suspect I would have enjoyed it more, had I not already read the Summerly (and the Roscoe upon which the Summerly is based). ( )