| Jack and the Beanstalk | |
|---|---|
 Illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1918, in English Fairy Tales by Flora Annie Steel | |
| Folk tale | |
| Name | Jack and the Beanstalk |
| Also known as | Jack and the Giant man |
| Aarne–Thompson grouping | AT 328 ("The Treasures of the Giant") |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Published in | Benjamin Tabart, The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk (1807) Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales (1890) |
| Related | "Jack the Giant Killer" |
"Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale. It appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734[1] and as Benjamin Tabart's moralized "The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk" in 1807.[2] Henry Cole, publishing under pen name Felix Summerly, popularized the tale in The Home Treasury (1845),[3] and Joseph Jacobs rewrote it in English Fairy Tales (1890).[4] Jacobs' version is most commonly reprinted today, and is believed to be closer to the oral versions than Tabart's because it lacks the moralizing.[5]
"Jack and the Beanstalk" is the best known of the "Jack tales", a series of stories featuring the archetypal English hero and stock character Jack.[6]
According to researchers at Durham University and Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the story originated more than five millennia ago in Proto-Indo-European, based on a widespread archaic story form which is now classified by folklorists as ATU 328 The Boy Who Stole Ogre's Treasure.[7]
- ^ Round About Our Coal Fire, or Christmas Entertainments. J. Roberts. 1734. pp. 35–48. 4th edition On Commons
- ^ Tabart, The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk. in 1807 introduces a new character, a fairy who explains the moral of the tale to Jack (Matthew Orville Grenby, "Tame fairies make good teachers: the popularity of early British fairy tales", The Lion and the Unicorn 30.1 (January 20201–24).
- ^ In 1842 and 1844 Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake, reviewed children's books for the Quarterly "The House [sic] Treasury, by Felix Summerly, including The Traditional Nursery Songs of England, Beauty and the Beast, Jack and the Beanstalk, and other old friends, all charmingly done and beautifully illustrated." (noted by Geoffrey Summerfield, "The Making of The Home Treasury", Children's Literature 8 (1980:35–52).
- ^ Jacobs, Joseph (1890). English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt. pp. 59–67, 233.
- ^ Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, p. 132. ISBN 0-393-05163-3
- ^ "The Folklore Tradition of Jack Tales". The Center for Children's Books. Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 15 Jan 2004. Archived from the original on 10 April 2014. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
- ^ BBC (20 January 2016). "Fairy tale origins thousands of years old, researchers say". BBC News. Retrieved 20 January 2016.