THE HISTORY OF MOTHER TWADDLE AND THE MARVELOUS ACHIEVEMENTS OF HER SON JACK

A brisk, rhymed "Jack and the Beanstalk" first published in England in 1807 and set off here with bright, broadly comic (and, in the case of the looming giant, broadly grisly) pictures. It is a damsel who greets Jack at the top of the beanstalk, and after slicing off the sleeping giant's head quicker than you can say Oedipus Rex, he marries her with equal dispatch, inviting his mother up for the celebration. Though it would be a pity to substitute this for a, stronger, more authentic prose version, children familiar with the folktale will enjoy the matter-of-fact eclat of the telling right up to the end, "(w)here Jack, and his wife,/ And his Mother are seen/ All dancing a jig/ Round the wonderful bean.