Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales

by Jacob Grimm

Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales collects more than 200 tales set down by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early decades of the nineteenth century, among them some of the best-loved and most famous fairy tales in all "Little Red Riding Hood," "Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "Rapunzel," "Rumpelstiltskin," and "Tom Thumb." Derived from folk tales that had been part of the oral storytelling tradition for centuries, these stories are acknowledged as literary landmarks that transcend their time and culture. This edition also features ten rarely seen "Children's Legends" and the full-color artwork of Arthur Rackham.

Genres: Classics, Fantasy, Fiction, Fairy Tales, Mythology, Folklore, Horror

648 pages, Paperback

Published August 24, 2018

About the author

German philologist and folklorist Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm in 1822 formulated Grimm's Law, the basis for much of modern comparative linguistics. With his brother Wilhelm Karl Grimm (1786-1859), he collected Germanic folk tales and published them as Grimm's Fairy Tales (1812-1815).

Indo-European stop consonants, represented in Germanic, underwent the regular changes that Grimm's Law describes; this law essentially states that Indo-European p shifted to Germanic f, t shifted to th, and k shifted to h. Indo-European b shifted to Germanic p, d shifted to t, and g shifted to k. Indo-European bh shifted to Germanic b, dh shifted to d, and gh shifted to g.

This jurist and mythologist also authored the monumental German Dictionary and his Deutsche Mythologie .

Adapted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rated PG.

It's no secret that I love fairy tales. Sometimes the Disneyfied ones, yes, but, mostly the layers of what can be cryptic, peculiar stories. We're so far from the world where adults would tell stories like this that I can't even fathom how these stories were narrated and taken down -- but there is so much to be mined from them.

That said, Grimm's fairy tales were different than I expected. There are a LOT more than I ever knew about, and a hefty chunk of them are really short, kind of strange ones, sometimes with more of a "memory game" component to them than a narrative with a plot. (And yes, there are definitely the morality tales, although I was a tiny bit surprised at how many of them are intended to teach children about what makes for a blessed death.) And there is a lot more repetition than I anticipated, too; there are several stories that have two, three, or even more variations throughout the volume. Characters have different names, occupations, or plights, but the essentials are the same -- and by essentials, I mean things like three impossible trials, three increasingly fantastical dresses (akin to the sun, moon, and stars, in that order), and the things that make us lose our way and break our promises.

And so much of it is driven by a Christian worldview. Not all of it, of course! But a hefty amount. I hadn't realized quite how many of these fairy tales are explicitly taken from Christian communities! I knew that fairy tales, especially the best ones, pull out the timeless themes of struggle, vice, and virtue that have echoed in the world since the Fall. But it's fantastic to read the whole volume and see even more in depth that more fairy tales than one would expect are reflections upon the human condition both in time and eternity.

I love how these stories, especially the ones that are told over and over again, are not just fantasy but paint pictures of character and virtue and fault -- the struggles of sinbound, imperfect humans.

[Judith Ray · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading all of the different fairy tales! However, I thought that a lot of them were very dark. For instance, one of the tales that stood out to me was "Hansel and Gretel." In this story Hansel and Gretel's parents are poor and do not have much to eat. So, Hansel and Gretel's mother suggests that she and Hansel and Greta's father leave Hansel and Gretal out in the woods so that they do not have to feed them. While Hansel and Gretel were in the forest they became lost and hungry and stumbled upon a little house made of bread, cakes, and sugar. As Hansel and Gretel were eating some of the house, an old woman came and greeted them. She led them inside the house where she planned to kill, cook and eat them. Every day the old woman checked to see if the children were fat enough for her to eat. On the day that the old woman planned to eat the children, Gretel pushed the old woman in the oven and burned her alive. Hansel and Gretel were both able to go back home and live with their father again. Hansel and Gretel's mother had died. I would use this book in my classroom to teach students about what moral lessons could be derived from this story. I could also use this and other stories from Grimm's fairy tales to teach my students about how to identify story themes and conflicts. My only concern in using these stories is that many of them have unhappy endings, which might upset some of the students.

[Kirk Rokey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good classic but a DNF because if everything else i'm currently reading

[Tashia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book to sit through and just read. You have to take it in bits and pieces.

[Matthew Shoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Numerous interesting and unique tales. Many share similar themes and storylines. A lot of repetition. Likely a must-read for any writers. I was crawling out of my skin with the tedium by the end.