Household Tales by Brothers Grimm Review
This is an ebook edition of Margaret Hunt's 1884 translation of the *complete* Brother's Grimm (i.e., the 211-tale "large edition," intended for adults and scholars). As such, the language is slightly archaic, and the text itself is lengthy, with the tradeoff that this version does contain the entire collection of stories in the forms the Grimms gave them. Thus,expect the language to be slightly different from what you might remember reading before ("Little Red Riding Hood" is here "Little Red-Cap") and the stories may contain more crudity, violence, and (occasionally) anti-semitism than the versions most people are familiar with. Similarly, several stories normally expurgated from later editions (i.e., "The Jew Among Thorns") are present in this collection.
There's no indexed table of contents, so you'll have to use the kindle's "find" feature to jump to specific stories, and there are some typographical/transcription errors, etc.. It also doesn't appear to contain the Grimm's or Hunt's scholarly footnotes. Still, this is a great overall grab for a free kindle ebook, and probably perfect for lunch-break reading and the like.
A little context: The Brothers Grimm were the first to make a significant scholarly attempt to collect the "original" versions of traditional folk tales, as told by ordinary people. They didn't always adhere perfectly to that dictum -- some of the stories they collected from print sources and educated, middle-class tale-tellers, not just the "common folk" -- but they were in many ways the first scholarly folklorists. They were also German nationalists, and their collections were intended to help foster a sense of German national identity and "German virtues."
Because the Grimms did edit their stories somewhat, and because many of these are traditional stories that exist in many versions in many nations, there are often versions that are "earlier" and more primal than the ones here. If you find yourself wanting more, I'd recommend you look up works by Charles Perrault or Andrew Lang; Perrault's tales pre-date the Grimms' and are often more violent (i.e., Red Riding Hood gets eaten); Andrew Lang's post-date the Grimms and are intended for children, but both should be out of copyright and available in free online editions.
Household Tales by Brothers Grimm Overview
Now it so happened that on one occasion the princess's golden ball did not fall into the little hand which she was holding up for it, but on to the ground beyond, and rolled straight into the water.
Available at Amazon Check Price Now!
Related Products
- Aesop's Fables; a new translation
- Adventures of Pinocchio
- Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp
- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel
- Kindle Shortcuts, Hidden Features, Kindle-Friendly Websites, Free eBooks & Email From Kindle: Concise User Guide for Kindle 2 (US & International), DX, 1, iPhone & iPod (Mobi Manuals)
Customer Reviews
Grim - Old Woman - Texas
These are not Mother Goose fairy tales. Most of them are repeats of other stories in the book. If these are the real versions, I can see why they got changed. I thought it was interesting to compare the familiar stories with the version I knew and the version in this book. This isn't light reading.
Just like you remember - Elle - Oklahoma
Entertaining, witty and delightfully creepy stories. I'll sometimes read one to myself during the day, then tell an edited, watered-down version to my son at bedtime.
Good, but repetitive. - Monica Taylor -
I only got through 50% (was already up to about 80 stories) of the book before deciding to just stop. The stories started to get very repetitive and I just couldn't read anymore. Other than the repetitiveness, some of the stories were pretty funny and interesting.
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 02, 2010 15:06:06
No comments:
Post a Comment