Book description
This volume contains a carefully chosen selection from the Grimms'
Children's and Household Tales, the most famous and influential of all
the great nineteenthcentury folklore collections.
The fairy
tales collected by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were first
published in 1812-15. While no one knows where the tales first came
from, features of many are found in myths from all over the world.
Through the oral tradition, they were passed down for centuries by
illiterate storytellers, until at last collectors began recording them
in print for the world of today, where they still captivate and delight.
The awardwinning translator Anthea Bell has selected, edited and
written a foreword for this new collection.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in 1785 and 1786 respectively,
in the town of Hanau, near Frankfurt in Germany. The two brothers were
distinguished philologists, but are best remembered for their
anthologies of folk and fairy tales, which they recorded by inviting
storytellers to their home and writing down what they heard.
Anthea Bell is an acclaimed translator of German and French
literature, and is known for her translations of W G Sebald's
Austerlitz, for which she won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in
2002, as well as the muchloved Asterix books.
She recently
translated Hoffmann's The Nutcracker for Pushkin Press. Other previous
Pushkin translations include Zweig's Burning Secret, for which she
won the SchlegelTieck Prize in 2010.
