Perry Index

The Perry Index is a widely used index of "Aesop's Fables" or "Aesopica", the fables credited to Aesop, the storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC. The index was created by Ben Edwin Perry, a professor of classics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Modern scholarship takes the view that Aesop probably did not compose all of the fables attributed to him;[1] indeed, a few are known to have first been used before Aesop lived, while the first record of many others is from well over a millennium after his time. Traditionally, Aesop's fables were arranged alphabetically, which is not helpful to the reader.[2] Perry listed them by language (Greek then Latin), chronologically, by source, and then alphabetically; the Spanish scholar Francisco Rodríguez Adrados created a similar system.[2] This system also does not help the casual reader, but is the best for scholarly purposes.[2][3]

  1. ^ D. L. Ashliman, “Introduction,” in George Stade (Consulting Editorial Director), Aesop’s Fables. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, (2005). Produced and published in conjunction with Fine Creative Media, Inc. (New York) Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher. See pp. xiii–xv and xxv–xxvi.
  2. ^ a b c Aesop (2002). Aesop's Fables. Oxford University Press. pp. xxxii–xxxiii. ISBN 0-19-160628-6. Retrieved 2 May 2012.
  3. ^ Rodriguez-Adrados, Francisco. Historia de la fabula greco-latina. III: Inventario y documentacion de la fabula greco-latina. Madrid: Editorial de la Universidad Complutense, 1987.