Grimms' Fairy Tales

Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm were German scholars who collected the folktales that became one of the most famous books of European literature. Their collection first appeared in German between 1812 and 1815, and English readers met it through translations, among them the one by Edgar Taylor, published in 1823. They were interested in language and in German tradition, and they believed that the stories preserved something of the nation's early imagination.

The tales were revised several times by the brothers in later editions, and the changes are still debated by scholars. Yet the stories keep their edge: wolves are dangerous, stepmothers are cruel and the woods are full of risk. The same book also contains lighter comic tales, such as Hans in Luck, and short stories like Jorinda and Jorindel, which are less well known than the famous names.

The audio edition has 63 tracks, with titles such as The Golden Bird, Hans in Luck and Jorinda and Jorindel, and lasts 10.5 hours. Ten volunteers read, so the voices change from tale to tale.

Why listen today? These stories have shaped children's literature, cinema and everyday imagery. Hearing them in a plain English translation, without the polish of later retellings, is a way to rediscover how strange and powerful they are. Because the tales vary greatly in length, from a few minutes to much longer, they can be sampled in many ways. Some listeners like to begin with the famous ones and then explore the less familiar, while others prefer to follow the order of the recording and be surprised by what comes next. Either way, the collection is a deep well.