By Rafe Calder
Two brothers did not make up Snow White. They wrote down what people told them, then spent forty-five years fussing with the wording.
What they were collecting
The City of Kassel says the Grimms did not invent the tales but recorded oral tradition, largely from storytellers. Wikipedia’s account of the Brothers Grimm is more careful about who. It says many tales came from educated acquaintances, and that the first collection was gathered largely from “educated, urban acquaintances”, though the brothers became known for collecting from peasants. The brothers are not the whole story, then, and not the only voice.
Storytellers were invited to the brothers’ home, and their words transcribed, according to Wikipedia. It names Dorothea Viehmann as one contributor, the wife of a middle-class tailor of French descent. The City of Kassel calls her the most important storyteller for the Grimms, passing on about 40 tales, and says her former house stands in the Märchenviertel in Niederzwehren. Wikipedia adds that in the first English translation she became a peasant called Gammer Gretel. The popular picture and the paper trail do not match.
Dates in order
- 1812: the first volume, with 86 tales. Wikipedia and the City of Kassel agree on 86. The City says it appeared in December.
- 1815: the second volume. Wikipedia says 70 more tales, numbered consecutively; the City of Kassel says 114. We cannot reconcile them: Wikipedia counts additions, the city may count the volume’s total, but that is our reading.
- 1819: the second edition, in two volumes, with an appendix issued separately in 1822, according to Wikipedia.
- 1837, 1840, 1843, 1850: third to sixth editions.
- 1857: the seventh edition, with 210 tales, which Wikipedia describes as 200 tales plus 10 “Children’s Legends”.
What changed in the telling
Wikipedia lists changes between editions. The wicked mother in “Snow White” and in “Hansel and Gretel” became a stepmother. Sexual references were taken out, such as hints of Rapunzel’s pregnancy. Violence, especially in the punishment of villains, became more prevalent. Wikipedia cites one scholar who thinks the brothers changed the mother because they “held motherhood sacred”. That is one reading, set down as his.
The working copies
This is the part that survives. The Grimmwelt museum’s collection page says the brothers’ own copies of the tales carry handwritten notes and comments. The Hessian science ministry, a state body, says these Kassel Handexemplare contain handwritten supplements and notes and are the most important surviving source on the tales’ origins and reception. It dates their UNESCO Memory of the World entry to 2005, and the City of Kassel agrees. Wikipedia mentions the register but gives no year.
They are displayed at the Grimmwelt, according to the City of Kassel and the Hessian ministry. The Grimmwelt says it opened in 2015. We have no source on how the copies are shown or how often they change.
The dictionary
The Grimms began a historical dictionary, the Deutsches Wörterbuch, in 1838, according to Wikipedia and the City of Kassel. The Grimmwelt says its first volume came out in 1854 and its thirty-second and last in 1961. The City says that in their lifetimes the brothers reached only the letter F, up to the word “Froteufel”. Wikipedia gives 1852 as the start of publication in instalments. The 1852 and 1854 dates refer to different things in different sources, and we do not choose.
Our reading of the dates: the brothers worked on the tales across most of their adult lives, so no single printed edition is the last word. A reader should always ask which edition a book follows.
Where to see the places
The City of Kassel says Jacob (1785 to 1863) and Wilhelm (1786 to 1859) lived and worked in Kassel for about 30 years, with interruptions, and that they started school there in 1798. Wikipedia says both were born in Hanau, the family moved to Steinau in 1791, and the brothers later attended the Friedrichsgymnasium in Kassel. The German Fairy Tale Route, which Wikipedia says was established in 1975, runs 600 km from Hanau to Bremen; Wikipedia names Steinau’s Grimm House and the Marburg student years on it. The Grimmwelt calls Kassel the capital of the route.
Kassel also lists two former Grimm residences, at Schöne Aussicht 9 and at the northern gatehouse on Brüder-Grimm-Platz, and the family graves in two cemeteries. We know nothing of what is open inside them.
How many languages
The City of Kassel says the collection has been translated into more than 170 languages. We have no second source on that, so it stands as the city’s figure.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia, a city authority, a state ministry and the Grimmwelt museum. The museum and the city both promote the sites. The edition history rests on one Wikipedia article.
What we left out
Opening hours, tickets, the political episode of the 1830s, and any list of editions for sale. Sephari curates; it does not stock books.
Quick answers
Did the Brothers Grimm write the fairy tales themselves? No. According to the City of Kassel they recorded oral tradition, largely from storytellers. Wikipedia adds that many came from educated acquaintances.
When were Grimm’s tales first published? Wikipedia and the City of Kassel both say the first volume appeared in 1812, with 86 tales.
Where are the Grimms’ annotated copies? The Hessian science ministry and the City of Kassel say they are shown at the Grimmwelt in Kassel and have been on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register since 2005.
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Roam first. Shop later.