# Grimms' Fairy Tales *Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales)* - Work: Story collection - Date: 1812–15 (first edition); 7th edition 1857 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/grimms-fairy-tales/ > Two German philologists gather Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin — and fix the dark forest, the witch's house and the wicked stepmother in the world's imagination. **Why it matters:** The Grimms made the folk fairy tale a literary form, shaping everything from Tolkien's 'On Fairy-Stories' and Disney's first feature to Sapkowski's Witcher and the fairy-tale lands of modern games. ## Quick answers **When was Grimms' Fairy Tales first published?** Grimms' Fairy Tales was first published in 1812–15 (first edition); 7th edition 1857. **What kind of work is Grimms' Fairy Tales?** Grimms' Fairy Tales is a story collection in the Fairy-Tale Fantasy and Children's & YA Fantasy tradition. **Why is Grimms' Fairy Tales important?** The Grimms made the folk fairy tale a literary form, shaping everything from Tolkien's 'On Fairy-Stories' and Disney's first feature to Sapkowski's Witcher and the fairy-tale lands of modern games. ## Overview When people say "fairy tale", they usually mean a story from this book. The *Kinder- und Hausmärchen* ("Children's and Household Tales") of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm gave definitive form to Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Cap, Briar Rose, Cinderella (Aschenputtel), the Frog King and some two hundred more. In them the forest is dark, the witch's house is made of bread and cake, the youngest son wins, the stepmother schemes, and cruelty is paid back in kind. For the history of fantasy, the collection is where the oral wonder tale of ordinary people was turned into print literature and elevated as a national treasure — and where the stock settings and creatures of the "fairy-tale" register of fantasy were fixed. ## Origins The brothers were scholars, not children's authors. Jacob, the elder, became one of the founders of Germanic philology — "Grimm's law" describes the systematic sound shifts that separate the Germanic languages from their Indo-European relatives — and Wilhelm was a literary scholar. In the wake of the Napoleonic wars, they set out to collect German folk poetry and tales as evidence of a shared national culture. Their informants were largely middle-class, often women: friends and neighbors in Kassel such as the Wild and Hassenpflug families, and the storyteller Dorothea Viehmann, who contributed dozens of tales. The first volume appeared on 20 December 1812 with 86 tales; a second volume of 70 followed in 1815. The brothers kept revising for the rest of their lives. By the seventh edition of 1857 the collection held 200 tales plus ten "children's legends". Wilhelm, especially, smoothed the style into the rhythmic, formulaic voice readers now think of as the fairy-tale voice, removed sexual references, and turned murderous mothers into stepmothers — even as the punishments of villains often grew more violent. The brothers also published *Deutsche Sagen* (German Legends, 1816–18), and Jacob's *Deutsche Mythologie* (1835) became a major study of Germanic belief, including elves and dwarfs. ## The story There is no single story, but there is a recognizable world. Children are abandoned in the forest and find a witch's edible house; a queen consults a magic mirror and poisons her stepdaughter, who is sheltered by seven [dwarfs](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/dwarf/); a miller's daughter must guess the name of a little man who spins straw into gold; a girl's hair becomes a ladder to her tower. Small household helpers appear in "The Elves and the Shoemaker". Animals talk, bargains are binding, names have power, and things come in threes. ## Reception & impact The tales spread quickly. Edgar Taylor's English selection *German Popular Stories* (1823), with etchings by George Cruikshank, helped launch a fashion for fairy tales in Britain that led to Andrew Lang's colored Fairy Books and to Victorian fantasists such as [George MacDonald](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/george-macdonald/). The collection is now on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register and has been called the foundational work of Western children's literature. In 1939 [J. R. R. Tolkien](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/j-r-r-tolkien/), himself a philologist in the Grimms' tradition, delivered the lecture "On Fairy-Stories" at the University of St Andrews. Published in 1947, it became fantasy's founding essay of theory — introducing ideas such as the [Secondary world](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/secondary-world/) and [Eucatastrophe](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/eucatastrophe/) — and it quotes the Grimms' "The Juniper Tree" as an example of a tale whose horror and beauty strike deep. Tolkien had no love for the most famous adaptation: in a 1937 letter to his publisher he confessed a "heartfelt loathing" for the Disney studios, whose *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs* opened that December. ## Legacy [Fairy-tale fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/fairy-tale-fantasy/) — from retellings to worlds built out of fairy-tale logic — descends from the Grimms. So does a great deal of fantasy gaming's texture: the enchanted forest, the witch in her cottage, the cursed princess, the riddle of a name, the bargain with a fey creature that must be kept to the letter. The most direct modern line runs through Poland. [Andrzej Sapkowski](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/andrzej-sapkowski/)'s *[Witcher](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher-saga/)* stories are full of inverted fairy tales; "The Lesser Evil" turns Snow White into Renfri, a hunted princess-turned-bandit whose companions are seven gnomes, and others play similar games with familiar tales. CD Projekt Red carried the method into video games: *[The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher-3/)*'s *Blood and Wine* expansion (2016) includes a storybook realm populated by characters from classic fairy tales. Two hundred years after the Grimms went looking for the German folk soul, their stories have become a shared international toolkit for anyone building a world where magic feels ancient, dangerous and bound by rules. ## Facts - The first volume went on sale on 20 December 1812 with 86 tales; the second volume of 1815 added 70 more. - Across seven editions the Grimms softened the stories — the murderous mothers of Snow White and Hansel and Gretel became stepmothers. - While sexual content was removed in later editions, violence — especially the punishment of villains — often increased. - Jacob Grimm is also the Grimm of 'Grimm's law', a landmark description of how Germanic sounds shifted — the kind of philology Tolkien practiced. - Tolkien's 'On Fairy-Stories' (lecture 1939, published 1947) quotes the Grimms' gruesome 'The Juniper Tree' as an example of a tale's power. - Sapkowski's Witcher story 'The Lesser Evil' reimagines Snow White as a hunted bandit leader with seven gnomes for companions. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimms%27_Fairy_Tales) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.