Around 1806 Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) started to collect fairy-tales with his brother Wilhelm (1786-1859). Nowadays their collection is one of the best known books of the world. After the bible there is no other book which has been translated more, read more or pressed more. Worldwide approximately 26 millions copies have appeared in more than 160 different languages.
The brothers Grimm have not written the stories from own fantasy. Both brothers were famous language scientists and their scientific research had been - among other things - aimed at the sources of the German language such as these still lived in the oral tradition of fairy-tales and sages.
The first part of the "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" contained 86 fairy-tales and was published on December 24th in 1812. The Second part - with 70 stories - appeared two years later in 1814. As from 1819 appeared updated and improved versions and in 1822 a third part was published, the so-called "Anmerkungen" - a bulky bookwork with notes of the brothers Grimm themselves concerning the origin and the meaning of the collected stories. Finally a second, revised and multiplied edition appeared in 1856, which forms the basis for almost all translations and following editions: a collection of all 200 stories plus the so-called 10 child legends.
The fairy-tales of Grimm are and remain unprecedentedly popular. In the beginning that was however different. Of the first edition from 1812 only 900 copies were pressed and it lasted more than three years before they were sold. The first expenditure was a simple book without rich illustrations or expensive layout. Such as said it contained 86 stories. A large part of it will become later the best-known fairy-tales of all-time, such as Snow-white, Mother Hulda (Frau Holle), King Thrushbeard, Sleeping beauty, Little Brother and Little Sister, The Frog King, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Grethel, Little Red Cap, Cinderella, The Bremen town musicians and Fundevogel (Bird-foundling) with the famous opening sentence: "There was once..." and the likewise well-known lock rule: "and if they are not dead, they are living still." The second part appeared on September 30th 1814 (with as year 1815) and contained 70 stories. Fifteen of them were told by Katharina Dorothea Viehmann, which in sum provided 37 stories to the brothers Grimm.
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