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Then up! up! he went, higher and higher. Up! up! —​higher and higher still; then stopped to breathe awhile, and looking out towards the coast, he saw the glorious sun rising from the ocean — the light bursting through gold and crimson clouds. Up! up!​again — ​higher and higher still, and looking down, he could scarcely see his mother's cottage. The whole valley looked like a pretty garden, the great trees like shrubs, and the bold river that ran through it reduced in size to a little silver rivulet. Up! up! — higher and higher still, until he reached the clouds that floated below the mountain summit. Jack was impressed with a feeling of awe at the strange and wonderful scene around him, and at his perilous situation.

The wind now arose, and as the leaves and the very Bean-stalk itself began to shake, and the mists to dash around him, hre paused awhile before he ventured to proceed further, for even the upper part of the Bean-stalk was hidden from his view.

He then began to think that, after all, the Fairy might, perhaps, be some evil spirit that had led him into this danger: and what a dreadful thing it would be if he were to fall from such a height, and be dashed to pieces! and he hesitated about going on. But, if the Fairy were a true spirit, and then what a disgrace it would be were he to return without accomplishing his object [that is, the theft of the enchanted harp and the hen that lays golden eggs, and then the release of his father from the dungeon]. That object was a good one: it was to relieve a father from bondage — perhaps to save his life; and thus it was a good, holy enterprise; and as the Bean-stalk rocked to and fro, and shivered in the breeze, he prayed for succour, for support, and strength, and he felt his courage and his strength revive. Then up! up! through the clouds he went — up! up! higher and higher —​till he had passed quite through the floating vapour — up! up! ​he went, cheerily and boldly. An eagle now dashed out from a crevice in the cliffs, to see what strange visitor had climbed so near his solitary​ nest. Jack heeded him not; but up! up! he went — higher and higher — and the eagle, too, whirled, circling — up! up! ​into the blue and cloudless sky. Up, too, went Jack; and now he saw a projecting rock, round which the Bean-stalk seemed to twine: it was what the valley folks had named the Giant's Nose. — "Jack and the Bean-stalk," p. 14-15.

Commentary

Jack and the Beanstalk, traditional fairy-tale of considerable antiquity first published in full in 1807. A poor boy named Jack plants an enchanted bean which instantly grows, so high that its top is soon lost in the sky. Jack climbs up, and reaches the wonderful 'Beanstalk Country' tyrannized over by a fearful giant whom Jack slays, afterwards marrying a beautiful lady. CS I; MED 21; OMF ii I; iv 16; PP 22. — Bentley et al., 131.

The story of the poor boy who makes good by doing good, the pattern for which has already been established by the first tale in the Fairy Library, "Hop-o' My-Thumb," seems to have been a favourite with the writer whose guilty childhood secret was pasting labels on bottles in Warren's Blacking Factory at 30, Hungerford Stairs, on the Thames. Dickens as a boy would have been familiar with the Horatio Alger story through an 1807 translation of the Perrault original.

Second volume in series George Cruikshank's Fairy Library.] The History of Jack & the Bean-Stalk | Edited and illustrated with six etchings by George Cruikshank. Published by First edition of London: David Bogue 86 Fleet Street. London: Printed by G. Barclay Castle St. Leicester Sq (1853). All eight illustrations on six plates present as called for in list on verso of fly-leaf. In original green card wraps, ornately illustrated on cover, which has at its head, 'George Cruikshank's | Fairy Library'; and at its foot, 'Published By | D Bogue 86 Fleet St. | Price One Shilling'. On back cover: 'Already Published, | Hop O'My Thumb and The Seven League Boots, | Illustrated with six plates, containing nine subjects, | being | No. 2 of George Cruikshank's Fairy Library. | Preparing for Publication, | No. III. | Cinderella and Glass Slipper. | Edited | and | Illustrated | by | George Cruikshank. | Price One Shilling each.

The frontispiece is Jack Climbing the Bean-Stalk, and the plate at page 28 is The Fairies tie the Giant up in the Bean-Stalk. Although the initial movement of the story resembles that of "Hop-o'-My-Thumb," in terms of the family's poverty and desperation, the cause of their troubles is not the father's alcoholism but the invading Danes, in particular, the Danish giant who has usurped and imprisoned Sir Ethelbert, Jack's father and the rightful owner of the mountain-top castle. The story's second movement again involves a cannibalistic giant living in a great house into which the hero inserts himself by pleading for food and shelter with the giant's kindly wife. Cruikshank develops the historical dimension further than his predecessors by introducing King Alfred at the end of the story, after he has vanquished the Danes. Since Cruikshank identifies the giant as both a member of the invading armies and the thief who has taken the family's castle and imprisoned Jack's father, he has given Jack a number of justifications for climbing the beanstalk and committing thefts that will result in the vanquishing of the giant.

The only major difference between the Tabart [1807: "Benjamin Tabart, At the Juvenile and School Library, No.157, New Bond-Street"] text and most modern day re-tellings is that Jack is carefully exonerated in advance from his depredations from the giant. Before he even approaches the giant's castle, from which he will steal the hen that lays the golden egg, the giant's money bags and his magic harp, Jack has met a fairy who explains that all these things rightfully belonged to Jack's father, whom the giant has killed. Jack becomes therefore an avenger of his father's death and an instrument of the fate which always ensures that natural justice prevails, rather than the indolent, happy-go-lucky adventurer which he seems to be at the beginning of the tale and which he probably was while the tale remained in the oral tradition. — "Introductory Essay," CTS: The Hockliffe Project. http://hockliffe.dmu.ac.uk/items/0019.html

The present illustration, widely reproduced, is almost iconic in its depiction of the legendary hero and the initial obstacle he faces, the daunting climb up the bean-stalk to the giant's castle. The finger of rock from which the vine depends contributes to the suspense in the text as it looks as if it may snap off at any moment. Whereas the text develops the heroic climb from Jack's perspective, and thereby reads his apprehensions and self-doubts, in the elegant engraving Cruikshank offers the reader the point-of-view of an objective observer, studying Jack as the eagle to the left is studying him. The craggy mountains, emphasizing the vertical, and floating mists, emphasizing the horizontal, form a credible and dynamic backdrop, complementing the cross-hatching of the underside of the crag which Jack (the focal point of the illustration) shortly will reach, if he keeps his nerve. This, then, serves as a suitable introduction (since it was originally the frontispiece for the David Bogue edition) to the more exciting aspects of the tale of Jack, the bean-stalk, and the giant. The 1854 frontispiece fuses the key elements of the story: the hero's quest, supernatural challenges, and the natural world in which the hero and his family toil at the opening of the story. Here is Cruikshank at his best, devoid of self-conscious didacticism and tedious moralising, and simply telling a story effectively with a subtle visual composition.

Cruikshank was already a distinguished caricaturist and illustrator of books for children and adults when he produced this work. His illustrations for the first English translation of Grimm's Fairy Tales were praised widely, but his own rewriting of fairytales was criticised, most prominently by Charles Dickens. This was not due to the quality of the illustrations, but because, in line with his temperance beliefs, Cruikshank rewrote aspects of the fairytales to warn the reader against the evils of alcohol. Thus, for instance, . . . in "Jack and the Beanstalk", the giant is an alcoholic. Dickens, a friend of Cruikshank, was outraged at what he considered to be a betrayal of the essence of fairytales and, in protest he published an essay in his weekly magazine Household Words entitled "Frauds on the Fairies" in protest (1853). — The British Library, Romantics and Victorians. See more at the British Library site.

Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas; Michael Slater and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.

British Library. "George Cruikshank's Fairy Library." Romantics and Victorians. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/george-cruikshanks-fairy-library

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Part One, "Dickens and His Early Illustrators: 1. George Cruikshank. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980. Pp. 15-38.

Cruikshank, George. The History of Jack & the Bean-Stalk. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. George Cruikshank's Fairy Library. London: David Bogue, 1854. (Price one shilling) 8 etchings on 6 tipped-in pages, including frontispiece.

Cruikshank, George. George Cruikshank's Fairy Library: "Hop-O'-My-Thumb," "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," "Cinderella," "Puss in Boots". London: George Bell, 1865.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z. The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. A Child's History of England. Illustrated by F. W. Topham and Marcus Stone. Holiday Romance and Other Writings for Children. Ed. Gillian Avery. London: Everyman & J. M. Dent, 1995. Pp. 2-395.

Guildhall Library blog. "A Gem from Guildhall Library's Shelves: George Cruikshank's Fairy Library by George Cruikshank published by Routledge in London (c. 1870)." 8 August 2014. https://guildhalllibrarynewsletter.wordpress.com/2016/08/08/a-gem-from-guildhall-librarys-shelves-george-cruikshanks-fairy-library-by-george-cruikshank-published-by-routledge-in-london-c1870/

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. "George Cruikshank." http://library.tulane.edu/exhibits/exhibits/show/fairy_tales/george_cruikshank

Hubert, Judd D. "George Cruikshank's Graphic and Textual Reactions to Mother Goose." Marvels & Tales, Volume 25, Number 2, 2011 (pp. 286-297). Project Muse. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/462736/pdf

"Introductory Essay." Fables and Fairy Tales. 0019: Anon., "The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk." CTS: The Hockliffe Project. http://hockliffe.dmu.ac.uk/items/0019.html

Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.

Perrault, Charles. "Jack and the Beanstalk." Fairy Tales and Other Traditional Stories. Lit2Go. http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/68/fairy-tales-and-other-traditional-stories/5089/jack-and-the-bean-stalk/

Vogler, Richard, The Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. New York: Dover, 1979.

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Last modified 25 June 2017