TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM SELECTED AND ILLUSTRATED BY LISBETH ZWERGER TRANSLATED BY ANTHEA BELL 5 THE FROG KING or IRON HENRY 11 THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN YOUNG KIDS 17 HANSEL AND GRETEL 29 THE BRAVE LITTLE TAILOR 41 THE SEVEN RAVENS 47 LITTLE RED CAP 53 THE BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS 63 BRIAR ROSE 69 THE POOR MILLER'S BOY AND THE LITTLE CAT 77 HANS MY HEDGEHOG 85 THE CHILDREN OF HAMELIN minedition
Tales of the oral tradition written down to last The famous collection of the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm The first edition of 86 tales collected by the Grimm brothers was published 200 years ago It contained many of the tales that are still among the most popular Little Red Cap The Frog King Briar Rose and others Several more editions followed Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were linguistic scholars who also wrote a work on German Grammar and began to compile a German Dictionary Both brothers supported the unification of the many separate German states and were dismissed from their posts at the university of Göttingen because of their political opinions They found a new place to live and work in Berlin and their collections of fairy tales became the most popular of all their books Since their own time much light has been cast on the way they collected the tales Readers imagined them travelling from place to place writing down stories told by old peasant women However the two scholars intention was rather to trace the course taken by the wisdom of the people back to its mythological sources In this they were continuing the work of the Romantic poets Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim in their famous folk song collection The Boy's Magic Horn Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm set about collecting fairy tales in a very practical way One of their most important informants was Dorothea Viehmann not an old peasant but an educated woman of French descent Her knowledge laid the foundations for their collection of Children's and Household Tales Other collectors contributed to the two brothers activities for instance the poet Annette von Droste Hülshoff and her sister Jacob and Wilhelm also took many stories from the French collection of Charles Perrault 1628 1703 Briar Rose and Little Red Cap for instance are of French origin Jacob and Wilhelm also wrote tales themselves They extended their collection in later editions and revised the texts extensively several times often because readers had objected that the fairy tales were too cruel and might encourage brutality The Grimm brothers collected leg ends as well as fairy tales The volume containing the German Legends of the Brothers Grimm lists 585 titles One example The Children of Hamelin also known as The Pied Piper of Hamelin is included in this book The illustrator Lisbeth Zwerger who has won the highest international distinctions devoted herself very early to the fairy tale genre and attracted attention with her surprisingly new vision of the old material The course of her wide ranging artistic development can be traced through her work on the tales of the brothers Grimm that are included in this book Werner Thusnelder
