The Brothers Grimm were Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859) who were both German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors. They collected and published folklore. They grew up in Hanau, Germany and were raised by their parents, Dorothea Grimm and a jurist father, Philipp Wilhelm Grimm. The brothers were interested in studying old languages and worked in a library3. They are best known for their collection of fairy tales called “Kinder- und Hausmärchen” (Children’s and Household Tales), which led to the birth of the modern study of folklore. The tales were collected from peasants, middle-class or aristocratic acquaintances. The brothers gained a reputation for collecting tales from peasants. They were among the most important German scholars of their time.
The Brothers Grimm collection of fairy tales called “Kinder- und Hausmärchen” (Children’s and Household Tales) contains 209 tales collected by the brothers Grimm, including famous ones such as “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Hansel and Gretel”. The collection is a principal source for artists and composers who are re-creating these tales in new and innovative ways around the world. The stories of magic and myth gathered by the Brothers Grimm have become part of the way children—and adults—learn about the vagaries of the real world.
There are Brothers grimm collected tales that are lesser known such as “The Seven Ravens,” “The Juniper Tree,” “The Golden Key,” and “The Fisherman and His Wife.” “The Seven Ravens” is a tale about a girl who sets out to rescue her seven brothers who have been turned into ravens. “The Juniper Tree” is a dark tale about a wicked stepmother who kills her stepson and feeds him to his father. “The Golden Key”” is a story about a boy who goes on a journey to find a golden key that unlocks a mysterious treasure. Lastly, “The Fisherman and His Wife” is a story about a fisherman who catches a magical fish that grants wishes, but his greedy wife’s wishes become increasingly extravagant and lead to their downfall.
The final 7th edition of the Brothers Grimm’s Fairy Tales was published in 1857 a few years before Jacob Grimm’s and Wilhelm’s deaths. Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm died from natural causes in 1863 at the age of 78. Wilhelm Grimm died in 1859 from an unidentified infection at the age of 73. Their collection of Fairy Tales continued to be published postmortem even to this day.