This book explores the tradition of fable across a wide variety of written and illustrative media, from its origins in classical antiquity to the end of the English eighteenth century and beyond. Tracing the impact of classical models on verse and moral fables of the eighteenth century, and studying the use of the fable by major writers--including Dryden, Pope, Swift, Gay and Cowper--in their historical and literary contexts, Mark Loveridge offers the first full account of a highly significant form of English and European literature.