Joseph Jacobs
Beanstalk beats you know by heart, and Indian folk tales you likely don't.
Joseph Jacobs was a folklorist, a Victorian collector who wrote down the stories people already told, and the two recordings we publish show both halves of his work.
Jack and the Beanstalk is the known quantity. Every listener carries this plot from childhood: the cow, the beans, the giant, and the climb. Hearing it slowly as an adult is closer to revisiting a place than following a story, and it is the Jacobs tale with a version from each narrator, Elizabeth Grace on The Sleepy Bookshelf and Andrew Bond on Send Me To Sleep.
Indian Fairy Tales is the discovery. First published in 1892, it collects classic folk stories from India, and for most Western listeners the plots arrive without any childhood echo attached. New tales in an old form make easy company at night: the shape promises nothing bad will last, even when you cannot guess what happens next.
