Cinderella authors brothers grimm biography

Once upon a time, a family by the name of Grimm carried on a life that was anything but. In the wooded German state of Hessen, Philipp, a town clerk, lived with his wife, Dorothea, and their children in a quaint cottage. Its exterior was an inviting light red, and its doors tan, as if made of gingerbread. The drawing room had been wallpapered with pictures of huntsmen, onto whose faces the two eldest boys, Jacob and Wilhelm (born in 1785 and 1786, respectively), would cheekily pencil in beards. Soon, Philipp was promoted to serve as the magistrate of a town nearby, and the Grimms moved into a stately home staffed with maids, a cook, and a coachman. Every Christmas, the family decorated a tree with apples, as was the German custom. In the summer, the children ventured into the surrounding woods to collect butterflies and flowers, confident they could find their way back home.

Then, one day, a dark cloud appeared, as if summoned by a witch jealous of their domestic idyll. In 1796, Philipp, only forty-four years old, succumbed to pneumonia. Jacob later recalled seeing his father’s body being measured for a coffin. Dorothea and her children were ordered to clear out. Without Philipp’s income, they were forced for a time to shelter in an almshouse just next door—cursed with a view of their former home and the courtyard where they once played, happily, until what came after.

Jacob and Wilhelm, the Brothers Grimm, experienced the kind of sharp reversal of fortune characteristic of the genre that became synonymous with their name: the fairy tale. A prince turned into a frog; a beloved daughter reduced to a scullery maid. Where the French rendition of “Cinderella,” by Charles Perrault, opens with Cinderella already in tatters, laboring away for her stepmother, the Grimms’ version, “Aschenputtel,” begins with the heroine’s mother on her deathbed. Ann Schmiesing, the author of “The Brothers Grimm: A Biography” (Yale), observes that the change transforms a “story of ‘rags

(1786-1859)

Who Was Wilhelm Grimm?

Wilhelm Grimm and his older brother Jacob studied German folklore and oral traditions, publishing a collection of stories eventually known as Grimms’ Fairy Tales which includes narratives like Briar Rose and Little Red Riding Hood. Wilhelm oversaw editorial work on future editions of the collection, which became more geared towards children.

Early Life

Wilhelm Carl Grimm was born on February 24, 1786, in the town of Hanau, Germany, to Dorothea and Philipp Grimm. Wilhelm Grimm was the second oldest of six siblings, and would later embark on an industrious writing and scholarly career with his older brother, Jacob.

Wilhelm and Jacob studied law at the University of Marburg from 1802 to 1806, following the path of their lawyer father. Due to health issues, Wilhelm didn't start regular employment until 1814, when he obtained a position as secretary at a royal library in Kassel, Germany. Jacob Grimm would join him there in 1816.

'Grimms' Fairy Tales'

Influenced by German Romanticism, a prevailing movement of the time, the brothers robustly studied the folklore of their region, with an emphasis on recording village oral storytelling that was vanishing with the advent of new technology. Jacob's and Wilhelm's work culminated in the book Kinder-und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales), the first volume of which was published in 1812. A second volume followed in 1815. The collection would later come to be known as Grimms' Fairy Tales, with famous stories that include Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, The Golden Goose, Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella.

Despite the emphasis on village oral traditions, the stories were in fact an amalgamation of oral and previously printed fairy tales, as well as information shared by friends, family members and acquaintances, with non-German influences. For instance, French writer Charles Perrault had earlier written a version of TheSleeping Beauty