Jack the giant killer

The story of Jack, the intrepid little boy whose courage and ingenuity defeated a host of many-headed giants several times his size, is an English folk-tale that must have been told often in the Victorian nursery of the Doyle family.

Growing up in the 1830s, they were all gifted children, especially Richard, whose natural talent for draughtsmanship was matched by imaginative invention and a passion for legend and the grotesque.

In 1842, when only eighteen, he created for his own delight a picture-book version of Jack The Giant Killer, writing the text by hand, and carefully placing on each page a water-colour illustration within a pictorial border.

The new everyman edition has typeset the text for greater legibility and redesigned the book for contemporary appeal, while retaining Doyle's vivid and characterful illustrations, enlarged and enhanced by modern colour printing techniques.

The result is a book that will satisfy the modern child's appetite for bloodthirsty exploits of wonder and magic, yet is at the same time a true collector's item for anyone interested in the history of children's book illustration.