The Last of the Huggermuggers

In Short

The Last of the Huggermuggers is a nineteenth-century children’s adventure story about Jacky Cable, a spunky young sailor known as Little Jacket, who survives a shipwreck on an uncharted island inhabited by benign giants. Expecting bloodthirsty monsters, Jacky instead discovers Huggermugger and his wife, two kindly, domestic creatures living simple lives alongside mischievous local dwarfs. After tragedy strikes the giant household, the sole survivor attempts to sail to America with a showman’s crew. The story endures for its subversion of traditional fairy-tale tropes, presenting giants with deep warmth, vulnerability, and quiet human dignity.

The Story

The tale opens with Jacky Cable, an adventurous Yankee lad who prefers idling around seaport docks to attending school. Eager to see the world, Jacky goes to sea, only for his ship to encounter a violent tempest near the coast of Java. The vessel smashes against jagged cliffs, leaving Jacky and six crewmates stranded on an unfamiliar shore. Searching for food, they find enormous watermelon-sized plums growing on giant bushes and take shelter inside massive sea shells on the beach. While Jacky sleeps, a giant named Huggermugger collects his shell to decorate his home.

Jacky awakens inside a vast room on a mantelpiece. Realizing he is in a giant's home, he tries to escape, eventually hiding inside one of Huggermugger's massive boots. When the giant steps into the boot, Jacky's pocket knife pricks his foot. Annoyed, Huggermugger sends the boot to Kobboltozo, a envious dwarf cobbler. Jacky slips out of the workshop and manages to reunite with his stranded crewmates, leading them to safety in a nearby cave.

Eventually, the sailors are rescued by an American ship. On board, they meet Zebedee Nabbum, an agent for Barnum who travels the world capturing exotic animals for display. Intrigued by Jacky's tale, Nabbum hires an expedition—including an author named Mr. Scrawler—to return to the island and capture a giant. Upon arrival, however, they discover that Huggermugger and his wife are gentle, civilized, and English-speaking. Instead of capturing them, the crew accepts their warm hospitality at Huggermugger Hall.

Tragedy soon intervenes. The spiteful dwarf Kobboltozo reveals a hidden ancient prophecy to Mr. Scrawler: if the giants' secret history is ever uncovered by outsiders, their line will end. Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Huggermugger falls mysterious ill and dies. Consumed by grief and left completely alone as the last of his kind, Huggermugger begs the sailors to take him away on their ship.

During the voyage to America, Huggermugger learns that Kobboltozo betrayed his secret. Heartbroken and realizing he can never truly fit into the modern human world as a museum spectacle, the giant weakens and passes away at sea. The crew collects his remaining bones to bring back to Barnum's Museum, leaving behind only the legend of the last giant.

How It Unfolds

Washed ashore on giant lands Little Jacket and his fellow sailors survive a catastrophic shipwreck and find themselves surrounded by impossibly huge vegetation and shells. They make the best of their plight by eating giant plums and sleeping inside empty mollusk shells along the beach.

Captured in a giant's boot Huggermugger inadvertently picks up Jacky’s shell and takes it home, trapping the boy inside his oversized mansion. Jacky hides inside the giant’s hunting boot, accidentally pricking the giant’s foot with a thorn-like knife, which prompts Huggermugger to send the boot away to a dwarf shoemaker.

Escape and rescue Taking advantage of the dwarf Kobboltozo's turned back, Jacky leaps from the workbench, escapes the shop, and reunites with his crewmates. The group hides out in a cave until a passing vessel picks them up and takes them to Java.

Plotting a giant expedition In Java, the sailors meet Zebedee Nabbum, a showman capturing wild beasts for Barnum, who decides to sail to the island to capture a giant. Jacky convinces Nabbum to abandon nets and force, insisting they treat the giants as peaceful, intelligent beings.

Hospitality at Huggermugger Hall Upon arriving at the island, the expedition finds the giant couple delightfully welcoming and friendly. The crew enjoys meals cooked by the giants, drinking berry beer out of Mrs. Huggermugger’s thimble and listening to stories.

A fatal secret revealed The bitter dwarf Kobboltozo sneaks information to the author Mr. Scrawler, revealing a hidden manuscript and a curse tied to the giants' history. Shortly after the secret is exposed, Mrs. Huggermugger fades away from a sudden illness and dies.

A tragic voyage home Grieving and lonely, Huggermugger voluntarily leaves his home island with the sailors, but he grows sick on the ocean voyage. Realizing he has no place in human society, the last giant dies before reaching America, leaving only his bones behind.

The People

• Little Jacket (Jacky Cable): A smart, small-statured Yankee boy who loves the sea more than school. He wants adventure and freedom, but when trapped by giants, his cleverness and cool head keep him alive. He acts as the moral bridge between the showmen and the giants, ensuring Huggermugger is treated with respect.
• Huggermugger: The massive, good-natured male giant who lives quietly with his wife on the isolated island. He wants nothing more than domestic peace, good food, and simple companionship. Devastated by the death of his wife, his gentle heart breaks, making him helpless and willing to abandon his homeland.
• Mrs. Huggermugger: Huggermugger's affectionate, house-proud giantess wife who loves home decor, shellfish, and frog dinners. She welcomes the small sailors with motherly warmth, but she succumbs to a mysterious, fatal decline that leaves her husband completely desolate.
• Zebedee Nabbum: A scheming, practical Yankee animal collector working for Barnum. Driven by profit and the desire to find unique spectacles for American museums, he initially plans to net the giant like a wild animal, though he eventually develops a genuine, sympathetic fondness for Huggermugger.
• Kobboltozo: A spiteful, envious dwarf cobbler who resents the Huggermuggers simply because they are large and he is small. Driven by bitterness, he searches out the giants' secrets and leaks them to the expedition, triggering the tragic prophecy.

In Its Own Voice

"The little sailor slept too soundly to know that he was travelling, free of expense, across the country at a railroad speed, in a carriage made of a giant's fish-basket."

Jacky unknowingly gets carried straight into the giant's house while sleeping inside a sea shell.

"They had a good dinner of fish, frogs, fruit, and vegetables, and drank a kind of beer, made of berries, out of Mrs. Huggermugger's thimble, much to the amusement of all."

The sailors experience the charming, scaled hospitality offered during their visits to Huggermugger Hall.

"She who was so dear to me is gone to the great Unknown, as on a boundless ocean; and this great sea which lies before us is to me like it."

The heartbroken giant surrenders to his immense grief after the loss of his wife, preparing to leave his island forever.

What It's Really About

Beneath its whimsical adventure plot, the book critiques nineteenth-century American commercialism and the exploitation of natural wonders. Zebedee Nabbum represents the impulse to reduce majestic, unique creatures to museum attractions and profit margins. The narrative contrasts this mercenary mindset with the gentle, idyllic life of the giants, who possess far more warmth and civility than the showmen trying to exploit them. The story also explores grief, loneliness, and the tragic inevitability of extinction. Huggermugger is not a monster to be slain, but the last representative of a dying, dignified world that cannot survive contact with modern commercial society.

Why Read It Today

Modern readers looking for an unusual historical children's tale will appreciate The Last of the Huggermuggers for its surprisingly melancholic tone and subversion of fairy-tale norms. Rather than featuring terrifying ogres or heroic giant-slayers, the story offers a gentle, sympathetic portrait of giant life that feels closer to Gulliver's Travels than traditional folk tales. The writing carries a breezy, conversational charm, though readers should expect periodic nineteenth-century Yankee dialect and period idioms, particularly in the dialogue of Zebedee Nabbum. The narrative moves at a brisk pace, balancing lighthearted comedy—such as sailors drinking out of a thimble—with a deeply somber ending. What remains with the reader is the poignant image of Huggermugger himself: a gentle, weeping giant stranded on a human ship, too large and sensitive for the world he is being dragged into. It stands out as an earnest, thoughtful story about empathy, loss, and the cost of human curiosity.