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About this episode
Nothing added, nothing embellished: that’s what the Brothers Grimm promised in the preface to their fairy tales. At the same time, they rewrote their book again and again over nearly half a century and seven editions. In episode 2 of our Grimm series, we lay the versions side by side: how Rapunzel’s pregnancy disappeared, how Snow White’s mother became a stepmother, why Rumpelstiltskin ends three different ways, and why Cinderella’s sisters only lost their eyes in 1819. Plus the big debate: were the Grimms preservers, editors or forgers?
📚 Sources and Further Reading
Maria Tatar: The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987 (expanded 2nd edition 2003). → On how violence increased across the editions while sexuality was erased. A very readable entry point.
Ruth B. Bottigheimer: Grimms’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys: The Moral and Social Vision of the Tales. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. → A quantitative analysis of punishment, speech and silence among female and male characters.
John M. Ellis: One Fairy Story Too Many: The Brothers Grimm and Their Tales. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. → The controversial argument that the Grimms deliberately misrepresented their sources.
Jack Zipes: “Mountains out of Mole Hills, a Fairy Tale.” Children’s Literature 13 (1985), pp. 215–219. → A critical response to Ellis.
Jack Zipes (trans.): The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. → The 1812/1815 texts in English, including the tales later dropped, so you can compare them with the familiar versions yourself.
D. L. Ashliman: Rumpelstilzchen von den Brüdern Grimm – a comparison of the 1810, 1812 and 1819 versions. University of Pittsburgh (online). Ashliman’s site also offers English translations of several Grimm tales in multiple versions. → The three versions side by side, sentence by sentence. (German texts)
Heinz Rölleke (ed.): Die älteste Märchensammlung der Brüder Grimm. Synopse der handschriftlichen Urfassung von 1810 und der Erstdrucke von 1812. Cologny-Genève: Fondation Martin Bodmer, 1975. → The basis for any comparison between the manuscript and the first printed edition. (German)
Heinz Rölleke: Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm. Eine Einführung. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2004. → Overview of the editing style, the stylistic ideal and the relationship between Jacob and Wilhelm. (German)
Lothar Bluhm / Heinz Rölleke: “Redensarten des Volks, auf die ich immer horche.” Märchen – Sprichwort – Redensart. Stuttgart/Leipzig: Hirzel, 1997 (expanded new edition, Trier: WVT, 2020). → The key study of Wilhelm’s insertion of idioms and proverbs. (German)
Lothar Bluhm: Märchen als Literatur aus Literatur. Die “Kinder- und Hausmärchen” der Brüder Grimm. Berlin: Metzler, 2023. → Reads the collection as the product of a deliberate literary design. (German)
Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbuch zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008. → Standard reference on the versions of every single tale. (German)