Jack and the Beanstalk

"Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English <a href="/facts/Fairy_tale/ex3X7qku">fairy tale</a> with ancient origins. It appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734 and as <a href="/facts/Benjamin_Tabart/3xz5UBds">Benjamin Tabart</a>'s moralized "The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk" in 1807. <a href="/facts/Henry_Cole_(inventor)/0DcnnJya">Henry Cole</a>, publishing under pen name Felix Summerly, popularized the tale in The Home Treasury (1845), and <a href="/facts/Joseph_Jacobs/jCbRRsAX">Joseph Jacobs</a> rewrote it in English Fairy Tales (1890). 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.
"Jack and the Beanstalk" is the best known of the "Jack tales", a series of stories featuring the archetypal English hero and stock character <a href="/facts/Jack_(hero)/bSQx1Avr">Jack</a>.
According to researchers at <a href="/facts/Durham_University/VJHcWdkh">Durham University</a> and <a href="/facts/Universidade_Nova_de_Lisboa/heKqSoMQ">Universidade Nova de Lisboa</a>, the story originated more than five millennia ago in <a href="/facts/Proto-Indo-European/cVLNoM3p">Proto-Indo-European</a>, based on a widespread archaic story form which is now classified by folklorists as <a href="/facts/Aarne%25E2%2580%2593Thompson%25E2%2580%2593Uther_Index/gUNRq8Yz">ATU</a> 328 The Boy Who Stole Ogre's Treasure.

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Jack and the Beanstalk