99 Fables is a book of fable

Fable

A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...

s by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author William March

William March

William March was an American author and a highly decorated US Marine. The author of six novels and four short-story collections, March was praised by critics and heralded as "the unrecognized genius of our time", without attaining popular appeal until after his death.March grew up in rural...

. The collection was first written around 1938 (there were ca. 125 fables then) but was never published as a whole. More than 40 had been published in journals and magazines such as Prairie Schooner, Kansas Magazine, Rocky Mountain Review, and New York Post

New York Post

The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

. Not long before his death in 1954, March returned to the collection and edited it, leaving 99 fables in all. March's manuscripts of the fables were further edited in 1959 by William T. Going, and published in 1960 by the University of Alabama Press

University of Alabama Press

The University of Alabama Press was founded in 1945 and is the scholarly publishing arm of the University of Alabama.An Editorial Board composed of representatives from all doctoral degree granting public universities within Alabama oversees the publishing program. Projects are selected that...

, with illustrations by Richard Brough. The cover won an award at the 1960 Southern Books Competition.

99 Fables in March's oeuvre

Although the collection is among the most obscure of March's works, 99 Fables stands as an almost complete picture of the world March inhabited: many of the complex themes that populate much of March's work are here restated in a more simplistic form. The editor of the collection, William T. Going, says, "The fables, then, come close to providing as personal a summary of March's world as we are likely to have. Here are all his favorite ideas, the epitomes of the themes of his fiction."

Critical reception

What few reviews there are (Simmonds lists only three in his William March: An Annotated Checklist) are positive. According to Allen King, writing in the South Atlantic Bulletin, March "emphasizes the platitudes of life by the platitudinous nature of his fables." Harper Lee

Harper Lee

Nelle Harper Lee is an American author known for her 1960 Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which deals with the issues of racism that were observed by the author as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama...

, in a review of the book, compares March's career with that of Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...

:

"As one reads the fables, one is haunted by the resemblance of William March to his natural predecessor, Ambrose Bierce. The two men had much in common: their work is criss-crossed with similar themes; both were ridden with personal demons; both viewed life with bitterness; each was a minor genius; and each was the most neglected writer of his time."

Canonical status

99 Fables has not yet achieved the status its editor thinks it deserves, though occasionally the book, which was never reprinted and is a relatively rare university press publication, has received significant mention a few times. Leonard Feinberg referred to its "poignant cynicism" in his Introduction to Satire. An example of March's cynicism is found in the fable, "The Unspeakable Words," which was included in a reader on rhetoric. In the fable, a committee investigates linguistic corruption in "the Brett language," wishing to eradicate four particular offensive words. They find a five-year old girl who was raised by deaf and dumb parents, and so can not have learned the four offensive words they hope to ban:

On the morning they visited her, they said solemnly, "Do you know the meaning of poost, gist, duss, and feng?"

The little girl admitted that she did not, and then, smiling happily, she said, "Oh, you must mean feek, kusk, dalu, and liben!"

Those who don't know the words must make them up for themselves.