Among the Tennyson family-owned books which form part of the house collection, there are a fair number from the library of Tennyson’s eldest son Hallam, and of children’s stories read by his wife Audrey to their three boys, inscribed and dated accordingly.
In this blog we will be looking at a children’s book of special significance from this collection, an enduring classic so widely circulated and accessible that a basic google search brings up multiple pages of animated interpretations on YouTube alone.
Remarkably, the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk can be traced back more than five millennia but was first published in its recognisable form in 1734, when it appeared as The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean. The story has been re-told and published numerous times since, including by Hallam Tennyson! Published in 1882, Hallam’s re-writing of this much-loved fairy tale contains the unfinished line drawings of the celebrated artist and book illustrator, Randolph Caldecott. Indeed, it was to be Caldecott’s last work before his death in 1886.
Hallam dedicates the work to his still living father, and touchingly to his three nephews who had recently been a source of considerable comfort to Hallam’s mother Emily in the months following the tragic death of her younger son, Lionel after contracting malaria in 1886, aged just thirty-two.
You can read Hallam’s rewriting of the tale, Jack and the Beanstalk: English Hexameters by following this link:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45288/45288-h/45288-h.htm