Biography Essay

Wilhelm Grimm's lasting contribution to German life and letters was the Kinder- und Hausmarchen (Children's and Household Tales, 1812-1815; translated as German Popular Stories, 1823, 1826; generally known as Grimm's Fairy Tales), to which both contemporaries and subsequent generations turned to find sources of German folk identity. Although both Wilhelm Grimm and his brother Jacob were initially responsible for assembling the raw material for the collection, it was Wilhelm who, especially in the later editions, shaped the narratives' content and style. An accomplished storyteller, Wilhelm Grimm imbued the tales with a straightforward, spare style. Because it was widely believed that the collection exhibited a sure grasp of the historical German folk spirit, the Kinder- und Hausmarchen found favor in many quarters. Within a few years of its first publication it had been translated into several European languages, and in both content and style it significantly influenced folk tale...