The Annotated Brothers Grimm

Celebrate the 200th birthday of the Brothers Grimm stories with this lavish volume now richly expanded for a new generation.

Publication of the Grimms’ Children’s Stories and Household Tales in 1812 brought the great European oral folk tradition into print for the first time. The Annotated Brothers Grimm returns in a deluxe and augmented 200th-anniversary edition commemorating that landmark event. Adding to such favorites as “Cinderella,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Snow White,” and “Rapunzel,” Maria Tatar includes six new entries, among them “Four Clever Brothers,” “The Water of Life,” “The White Snake,” and “The Old Man and His Grandson.” The expanded edition features an enhanced selection of illustrations, many in color, by legendary artists such as George Cruikshank and Arthur Rackham; annotations that explore the historical origins, cultural context, and psychological effects of the tales; and a biographical essay on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. A perennial favorite in the acclaimed Norton Annotated series, this magnificent volume will draw both children and adults into the enchanting world of fairy tales.

Of all of the rich fairy-tale collections that exist in countries throughout the world, few are better known than those gathered almost two centuries ago by a pair of German brothers—Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm—in their Children’s Stories and Household Tales, first published in 1812. Endlessly recast and reimagined in poetry and prose, on the screen and onstage, these stories are forever etched in our imagination. Here, in this bicentennial edition of The Annotated Brothers Grimm, Maria Tatar presents these timeless stories in a sumptuous and visually powerful format that helps reshape our understanding of the Brothers Grimm.

Drawing from the final authoritative version in the mid-nineteenth century, Tatar, an internationally recognized scholar in the field of folklore and children’s literature, has translated and provided commentary for more than fifty Grimm stories, judiciously selecting tales that resonate with modern audiences and reveal the broad thematic range of the Grimm canon. Readers young and old will encounter popular classics, including “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” and “Rapunzel,” while discovering some of the lesser known yet equally captivating stories such as “Four Artful Brothers,” “The Water of Life,” and “The White Snake,” all new to this edition. Perhaps most noteworthy is Tatar’s decision to include tales excised from later editions, including a number of “adult” stories that were removed once the Grimms realized that parents were reading the stories to children.

Tatar’s own translations are accompanied by insightful annotations that search for origins, uncover cultural complexities, and explore psychological effects. Nearly two hundred images of exquisite beauty, many of them new to this edition—by artists such as George Cruikshank, Gustave Doré, Kay Nielsen, and Arthur Rackham—are reproduced alongside the stories. With a brilliant introductory essay by A. S. Byatt, along with the Grimms’ original prefaces to their editions, a collection of reminiscences about “The Magic of Fairy Tales,” and essays on the lives of the Brothers Grimm and the cultural impact of their tales, The Annotated Brothers Grimm captures the magical appeal of the tales while also unlocking their potent mysteries.

In the tradition of Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, this volume shows how the Grimms’ fairy tales animate our imaginations and remain with us long after we have put them aside. The Bicentennial Edition of The Annotated Brothers Grimm offers a treasury of cultural lore and wisdom that has been passed on from one generation to the next.

Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) is the author, along with his brother Wilhelm, of the classic tales of folklore and fantasy collectively known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Also a librarian and dictionary writer, Jacob was an acclaimed linguist and academic who elaborated "Grimm's Law," a major historical breakthrough in the development of the study of linguistics.

Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) studied law in the early 1800s but became much better known as an accomplished and passionate storyteller and, with his brother Jacob, one of the Grimm Brothers, who gave the world the groundbreaking and fantastic collection of folklore, fairy stories, and fantasy tales we now call Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Maria Tatar chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. She is the author of Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood, Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood and many other books on folklore and fairy stories. She is also the editor and translator of The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, The Annotated Peter Pan, The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition and The Grimm Reader. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Maria Tatar chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. She is the author of Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood, Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood and many other books on folklore and fairy stories. She is also the editor and translator of The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, The Annotated Peter Pan, The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition and The Grimm Reader. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.