Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale. The earliest known appearance in print is Benjamin Tabart's moralised version of 1807.[1] "Felix Summerly" (Henry Cole) popularised it in The Home Treasury (1842),[2] and Joseph Jacobs rewrote it in English Fairy Tales (1890).[3] Jacobs' version is most commonly reprinted today and it is believed to be closer to the oral versions than Tabart's because it lacks the moralising.[4]
Jack and the Beanstalk is only the most well-known of a series of stories featuring the trickster character Jack.[5] These "Jack tales" survived as oral traditions in the American Appalachian area and can be traced back at least to Council Harmon (1803-1896),[6][7] a noted Appalachian storyteller whose cycle of Jack tales was collected in the twentieth century from his descendants by North American folklorist Richard Chase.[8]