Grimm's Fairy Tales

The most famous collectors of fairy tales are the Brothers Grimm, Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859). This free amazon kindle book contains all of the 200 Grimm's tales and 10 children's lessons in easy to read English. Many people think that fairy tales are just for children and that adults can get nothing worthwhile or practical from them. These people forget that fairy tales are akin to myths, legends, parables, many sermons, and Midrash. They are tales with messages. Many are unnatural, magical, otherworldly; but these aspects help capture the listeners' imagination and help them remember many details so that even though they may not fathom them immediately, they will recall them later, sometimes just subconsciously, and get the practical lessons. Let's take a familiar story, Rapunzel. Parents surrender their child to an enchantress in exchange for a large supply of a delightful edible plant called rapunzal. While the parents willingly give up their daughter, the enchantress wants her just for herself. She calls her Rapunzel after the food. She places her in a tower with no doors and a window. Rapunzel has very long hair. When the enchantress want to go see her, she calls to Rapunzel to let her hair out the window and she climbs up the hair to her room. A prince happens by and sees this. When the enchantress goes away, he calls to Rapunzel, who thinks he is the enchantress, and climbs up her hair. Soon Rapunzel is pregnant, the enchantress discovers the liaison, she blinds the prince, and cuts Rapunzel's hair to stop the prince from ascending to her. Rapunzel finds a way to build a rope so that she can descend, and does so. She cries when she sees that the prince is blind and her tears restore his sight, and she and the prince live happily ever after. What does this story tell its readers? Note that the parents' willingness to give up their only child because of the mother's craving for a delicacy is remarkably similar to the biblical story of King David's lust for Bat Sheba and both are similar to the daily act by people giving up something important because of momentary cravings; such as good health for a hamburger. What is the enchantress? Couldn't she simply be the laws of nature? What does the hair signify? Ever since the beginning of time people thought that some special power exists in hair. The Greek warrior Spartans wore their hair long for this reason, so did the biblical Samson. What is the significance of the prince and climbing up the hair? What is the meaning underlying the use of rope instead of hair? Does it suggest getting rid of superstitions (about hair) and using intelligence? What practical lesson is there in the idea that the tears opened the prince's vision? These are just a few of the many questions that can be asked about this simple fairy tale, questions that show that the story has lessons.

This is an ebook edition of Margaret Hunt's 1884 translation of the *complete* Brother's Grimm (i.e., the 211-tale "large edition," intended for adults and scholars). As such, the language is slightly archaic, and the text itself is lengthy, with the tradeoff that this version does contain the entire collection of stories in the forms the Grimms gave them. Thus,expect the language to be slightly different from what you might remember reading before ("Little Red Riding Hood" is here "Little Red-Cap") and the stories may contain more crudity, violence, and (occasionally) anti-semitism than the versions most people are familiar with. Similarly, several stories normally expurgated from later editions (i.e., "The Jew Among Thorns") are present in this collection. There's no indexed table of contents, so you'll have to use the kindle's "find" feature to jump to specific stories, and there are some typographical/transcription errors, etc.. It also doesn't appear to contain the Grimm's or Hunt's scholarly footnotes. Still, this is a great overall grab for a free kindle ebook, and probably perfect for lunch-break reading and the like. A little context: The Brothers Grimm were the first to make a significant scholarly attempt to collect the "original" versions of traditional folk tales, as told by ordinary people. They didn't always adhere perfectly to that dictum -- some of the stories they collected from print sources and educated, middle-class tale-tellers, not just the "common folk" -- but they were in many ways the first scholarly folklorists. They were also German nationalists, and their collections were intended to help foster a sense of German national identity and "German virtues." Because the Grimms did edit their stories somewhat, and because many of these are traditional stories that exist in many versions in many nations, there are often versions that are "earlier" and more primal than the ones here. If you find yourself wanting more, I'd recommend you look up works by Charles Perrault or Andrew Lang; Perrault's tales pre-date the Grimms' and are often more violent (i.e., Red Riding Hood gets eaten); Andrew Lang's post-date the Grimms and are intended for children, but both should be out of copyright and available in free online editions.

I loved this book of the brothers grim what more is to say then the of grim tales are great

It is interesting to read some of these "fairy tales" as an adult. It's fun to remember stories from your childhood, and wonder "How did these violent tales become children's stories anyway?"

My puppy ate a miniature collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales that I can no longer find. I purchased this to replace my original. It was packaged well, the binding is beautiful and it contains a vast amount of stories that I'm looking forward to revisiting.

The book is high quality. It has beautiful gold edges and a ribbon bookmark attached. The illustrations are old-fashioned and perfect for the stories. The binding is sturdy and the book has a good heft. It's a perfect gift.

This is one of the finest books I’ve ever purchased. It’s covered in leather and stamped with gold and silver. The edge is gold. A cloth place keeper is sewn in. The content is comprehensive of the Grimm brothers work along with commentary. At the price I paid, it was a steal as inferior editions sell for more money.

This is a collection of great tales & fables. I must say that the beginning is the most interesting as all the tales are fresh and vibrant. But as you progress through the work you find hyper-redundant themes. For instance: 1. Tales where there are 3 brothers, one is label incompetent the other two are the kings favorites. The two favorites are debacherous revelers and when sent on a quest decide to either be lax as they believe their other brother to be droll & incapable, or they blow off the quest for some form of self-deprecating endeavor. The once "incompetent" brother wins the kings favor, gets the girl & ceases to be the village idiot. 2. Tales of broken families. Two sisters, one sister is hated by both her ugly stepsister & her step mother because of her beauty. She's either cursed to make her temporarily ugly or put to hard labor in efforts to break her spirit. Underhandedly the beautiful sister slys away to some party meets a king and repeats this process multiple times until in some way or another it is discovered to be she that one the princes heart and he takes her away from her drudgery. 3. Tales of children forsaken in the forest. Ala Hansel & Gretel. The family can't feed their children any longer and need to dispose of them for their own self-interest / preservation. The children are left in the woods and eventually lose their way to stumble upon some dangerous bit of adventure. After offing the witch and returning home to tell the tale one family member or another is ousted because it was originally their idea to berid the family of the children's burden. These are a few of the motifs that are consistently repeated. If it weren't for this fact I'd most likely have enjoyed the stories a bit more, but rather I found myself pushing through a page, or even simply looking at a stories title and thinking "I know how this is going to end." And it almost always did end such as my thinking, without little variation or anything new being introduced. Hence 5-stars for the initial originality & the uniqueness of the tales and a subsequent 2-star drop for the redundancy that began to occur just before mid-point of the book.