Blogging Once Upon a Time

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Kinder- und Hausmärchen gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm. Kleine Ausgabe. With illustrations by Paul Meyerheim. Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1886.

This is the thirty-fourth edition of the Kleine Ausgabe (Small Edition) of the Grimms’ fairy tales.   First published in 1825, the Kleine Ausgabe was a collection of fifty tales from the Grosse Ausgabe (Large Edition) originally published by the Grimms in two volumes in 1812 and 1815.  The original Grosse Ausgabe contained 156 tales and was not immediately popular; for this reason, the streamlined Kleine Ausgabe was published in part to appeal to a broader middle-class audience.  Among the tales included in the Kleine Ausgabe are the Grimms’ versions of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, and Cinderella.

[Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm]. Kinder-Märchen gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm. Stuttgart: Loewes Verlag Ferdinand Carl, n.d.

As the title of this illustrated collection of forty-eight tales from the Brothers Grimm suggests, the fairy tale was increasingly viewed as a genre for children in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  Here the tales are no longer referred to as “Kinder- und Hausmärchen” (Children’s and Household Tales), but exclusively as “Kinder-Märchen” (Children’s Tales).   These pages show the still popular German tales “Die Sterntaler”  (Star Coins) and “Sneewittchen” (Snow White) on facing pages.  In the illustration of “Star Coins” on the left, gold coins rain down to reward the poor orphan girl whose piety and modesty have inspired her to give away the little food and clothing she possesses.  By contrast, the wicked queen in “Snow White” vainly regards herself in her magic mirror on the right.  The two tales exemplify the manner in which the Grimms’ tales were often used to impart cautionary and exemplary moral lessons to their bourgeois readers and listeners.

[Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm]. Kinder und Hausmärchen gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm. 2 Vols. Große Ausgabe (Large Edition). 7th ed. Göttingen: Verlag der Dieterischen Buchhandlung, 1857.

The famous 1857 edition of the Grimms’ fairy tales is the seventh and final edition of the tales in their lifetime and the source for most modern compilations and translations.  It contains two hundred tales and ten “Kinderlegenden” (children’s legends).  This volume is open to tale #89, “Die Gänsemagd” (The Goose Girl).

Text by Associate Professor Ann Schmiesing