# Project Gutenberg publishes a public-domain English Aesop (Townsend line)

Date: 1992

## The fact

Gutenberg ebook 21 releases a public-domain English Aesop.

## Context

Free digital text widens classroom use and also widens uncritical ‘[Aesop](/people/aesop) said’ quotation. Authorship caveats must travel with the file; they often do not.

Aesop is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

An official or archival page and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: The Fables of Aesop (Townsend / public-domain English) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21; Project Gutenberg).

## Significance

A public-domain file is access. It is not a biography.

A public-domain file is access. It is not a biography.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Aesop: https://factrail.ai/people/aesop

## Drivers

- Digital Learning Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access

## Sources

- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21
- https://www.loc.gov/item/2021663235/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-gutenberg-townsend