Grimm's Fairy Stories

The Brothers Grimm were born in the town of Hanau in Hesse-Kassel (now Germany) and spent most of their childhood in the neighboring town of Stenau. Their father's death in 1796 left the family impoverished and affected the brothers for many years afterward. They attended the University of Marburg where they began their lifelong dedication to research into the early history of the German language and literature, including German folk tales. The rise of Romanticism during the eighteenth century revived interest in traditional folk stories, which for Grimm and their colleagues represented a pure form of national literature and culture. The Brothers Grimm established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis for studies of folklore. Between the first edition of 1812-1815 and the final seventh edition of 1857, they revised their collection several times, growing from 156 stories to over 200 stories. In addition to collecting and editing folk tales, the brothers collected German legends. They individually published a large body of linguistic and literary studies. Together in 1838 they began work on a huge German historical dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch), which they completed in their lifetime only as far as the word Frucht (fruit). Many of the Grimms' folk tales have enjoyed enduring popularity. The tales are available in more than 100 languages ​​and have been adapted by filmmakers (including Lotte Reiniger and Walt Disney), with films such as Snow White, Seven Dwarfs, and Sleeping Beauty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the tales were used as propaganda by the Third Reich. Later in the twentieth century, psychologists (such as Bruno Bettelheim) re-emphasized the value of the work, despite the cruelty and violence in the original versions of some of the tales, which the Grimms eventually purged.