Aesop

Probably a former slave, Aesop lived around 600 BCE. At first, his tales were passed down through oral tradition. It’s hypothesized that Socrates set the fables to verse while he was in jail. Phaedrus translated them from Latin to Greek. William Caxton, the first English printer, produced an edition of Aesop’s Fables in the fifteenth century. The stories have remained popular ever since; Aesop’s use of personified animals to teach simple moral lessons has also been emulated by countless authors throughout history.