La Fontaine was a French poet, but is remembered mainly for his fables, published between 1668 and 1694.

The first six books of his Fables choises mises en vers were published in 1668 and contained 125 fables. He added another 100 to the edition brought out in 1678, and then twenty-four more in 1693.

La Fontaine based his fables mainly on Aesop, but also used Phaedrus, a Latin verse translation of the Greek fables. More than a dozen of his fables were drawn from the ancient Indian text, the Panchatantram.

His fables were first translated into English in 1734.