Preface.

I have named the sources and tools with the good intention of making them known to youths and thereby giving them some guidance as to how they must go about it if they do not want to learn mythology merely from Pomey a reference to François Pomey, author of the widely used Pantheum Mythicum.

I submit this translation to the public, moreover, only as a test of whether I may venture to attempt another writer of antiquity in the future. For this, I have chosen Aelian's various accounts, a book that contains so much that is charming and, alas, is read too little by our youths! Quedlinburg, on the 29th of September, 1773.

A decorative woodcut vignette features a basket of flowers and leafy branches, framed by symmetrical rococo scrollwork and acanthus leaf flourishes.