Cultural Preservation and Metropolitan Transformation: Folk-Tale Traditions and The Queen of Paradise’s Garden , a Newfoundland Jack Tale

Abstract

The Queen of Paradise’s Garden , adapted by Andy Jones and illustrated by Darka Erdelji, is a picture-book version of a Newfoundland Jack tale. The movement of the tale through a variety of forms—from oral tale to print transcription to puppet play to picture book—and its role as a cultural artifact echo the complexities of folk-tale transmission and transformation globally and historically. This article examines the ways in which the picture book and its antecedent versions are both of Newfoundland and of a larger and ongoing history of folk tales.