Benjamin Tabart was an English publisher and bookseller of the Juvenile Library in New Bond Street, London. Many of the books in his list were written by himself. In an age of strictly moralizing children's literature

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

, he broke ground with his fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

s and light-hearted nursery stories and chapbook

Chapbook

A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...

 tales. His is the first printed version (1807) of the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jack and the Beanstalk is a folktale said by English historian Francis Palgrave to be an oral legend that arrived in England with the Vikings. The tale is closely associated with the tale of Jack the Giant-killer. It is known under a number of versions...

. Tabart had for an editor Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...

 (Mrs William Godwin

William Godwin

William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...

) and maintained close professional relations with the prolific publisher, Sir Richard Phillips

Sir Richard Phillips

Sir Richard Phillips was an English schoolteacher, author and publisher.Phillips was born in London. Following some political difficulties in Leicester where he was a schoolteacher and bookseller, he returned to London, established premises in Paternoster Row, St. Paul's Churchyard, and founded...

.

The standard bibliography of Tabart's production is Marjorie Moon, Benjamin Tabart's Juvenile Library: A Bibliography of Books for Children Published, Written, Edited and Sold by Mr. Tabart, 1801–1820. (Winchester: St Paul's Bibliographies) 1990.