Magazine_ and _Chambers's Penny
Tracts and Miscellanies_. For many years before the
Victorian period, folk-lore was left to the peasants and
kept out of reach of the children of the higher classes.
This was the reign of the moral tale, of Thomas Bewick's
_Looking Glass of the Mind_ and Mrs. Sherwood's _Henry and
His Bearer_. Among the chap-books published by William and
Cluer Dicey, may be mentioned: _The Pleasant and Delightful
History of Jack and the Giants_ (part second was printed and
sold by J. White); _Guy, Earl of Warwick; Bevis of Hampton;
The History of Reynard the Fox_, dated 1780; _The History of
Fortunatus_, condensed from an edition of 1682; _The Fryer
and the Boy; A True Tale of Robin Hood_ (Robin Hood Garland
Blocks, from 1680, were used in the London Bridge Chap-Book
edition); _The Famous History of Thomas Thumb; The History
of Sir Richard Whittington_; and _The Life and Death of St.
George. Tom Hickathrift_ was printed by and for M. Angus and
Son, at Newcastle-in-the-Side: _Valentine and Orson_ was
printed at Lyons, France, in 1489; and in England by Wynkyn
de Worde. Among the chap-books many tales not fairy tales
were included. With the popularity of _Goody Two Shoes_ and
the fifty little books issued by Newbery, the realistic tale
of modern times made a sturdy beginning. Of these realistic
chap-books one of the most popular was _The History of
Little Tom Trip_, probably by Goldsmith, engraved by the
famous Thomas Bewick, published by T. Saint, of Newcastle.
This was reprinted by Ed. Pearson in 1867.

Of _Jack the Giant-Killer_, in Skinner's _Folk-Lore_, David
Masson has said: "Our _Jack the Giant-Killer_ is clearly the
last modern transmutation of the old British legend, told in
Geoffrey of Monmouth, of Corineues the Trojan, the companion
of the Trojan Brutus when he first settled in Britain; which
Corineues, being a very strong man, and particularly
good-humored, is satisfied with being King of Cornwall, and
killing out all the aboriginal giants there, leaving to
Brutus all the rest of the island, and only stipulating
that, whenever there is a peculiarly difficult giant in any
part of Brutus' dominions, he shall be sent for to finish
the fellow."

_Tom Hickathrift_, whose history is given in an old number