One of the great nineteenth-century folklorists, Joseph Jacobs collected
stories from oral sources and made scholarly notes on their origin, but he
deliberately recorded them in a plain and direct style which he thought
suitable for children and which makes them 'supremely tellable'. First
published in 1890, his famous collection includes all the well-known tales,
such as JACK AND THE BEANSTALK and DICK WHITTINGTON, as well as British
variants of stories common to many cultures. The illustrations by John
Batten are taken from the first edition.