Jack and the Beanstalk by Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, (1852-1928)

I am passionate about The Tennyson Family, researching art, painting, and literature of the nineteenth century mainly. That being said, I just learned something new about Alfred Tennyson's eldest son, Hallam Tennyson! He published a children's book in 1886 during his father's lifetime! I didn't know that until just now. Obviously, I knew and have read his most popular work, the two-volume Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son (London, 1897) but Jack and the Beanstalk was a wonderful surprise to find!

  

Author, Ann Thwaite in her biography, ‘Emily Tennyson: The Poet’s Wife’ explains how Jack and the Beanstalk came to be, “In these difficult months after Lionel’s death, Emily had been comforted and cheered by Lionel’s boys, who spent much of their time with their grandmother. She read to them Hallam’s version of Jack and the Beanstalk in English hexameters which he had dedicated to his nephews. It was supposed to be a sumptuous picture book, in full colour illustrated by Randolph Caldecott, but had appeared with only some preliminary sketches, for Caldecott had died that winter, aged thirty-nine, just two months before Lionel. “

To read an interesting biography on Hallam Tennyson, Australian Dictionary of Biography

To read Jack and the Beanstalk yourself online, archive 

To read my article about Hallam Tennyson and his life as Baron in Australia, Harold Courtenay Tennyson