The Annotated Brothers Grimm (The Annotated Books) [Hardcover]

Jacob Grimm (Author), Wilhelm Grimm (Author), Maria Tatar (Editor), A. S. Byatt (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2004 | Series: The Annotated Books

Maria Tatar redefines the Grimm canon with this authoritative and entertaining collection.

The Annotated Brothers Grimm celebrates the richness and dramatic power of the legendary fables in the most spectacular and unusual Grimm volume in decades. Containing forty stories in new translations by Maria Tatar—including "Little Red Riding Hood," "Cinderella," "Snow White," and "Rapunzel"—the book also features 150 illustrations, many of them in color, by legendary painters such as George Cruikshank and Arthur Rackham; hundreds of annotations that explore the historical origins, cultural complexities, and psychological effects of these tales; and a biographical essay on the lives of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Perhaps most noteworthy is Tatar's decision to include tales that were previously excised, including a few bawdy stories and others that were removed after the Grimms learned that parents were reading the book to their children—stories about cannibalism in times of famine and stories in which children die at the end. Enchanting and magical, The Annotated Brothers Grimm will cast its spell on children and adults alike for decades to come. 75 color and 75 black-and-white illustrations

Editorial Reviews

Review

Tatar's book, with its annotations, explanations, front matter and end matter, illustrations and biographical essay and further-reading section, is difficult to overpraise. A volume for parents, for scholars, for readers, it never overloads the stories or, worse, reduces them to curiosities. And as an object, it's a chocolate-box feast of multicolored inks and design.--

           

 Neil Gaiman, New York Times Book Review

Tatar provides a very handsome volume, richly illustrated, full of wonderful facts, quotations, history, and with a very clear and extremely readable translation. Tatar's annotated Grimm is the perfect volume for someone seeking to learn more about the tales. She does not fill this volume with her own opinions and judgments; she carefully amasses information then steps back.

Edward Carey, Boston Globe

“[Tatar's] edition is the one I would recommend.” (Joan Acocella - The New Yorker )

“[O]ne of today’s most appealing versions is the Harvard scholar Maria Tatar’s Annotated Brothers Grimm, rereleased in a new edition this Fall.” (Amanda Katz - New York Times )

“This rich and valuable edition brilliantly showcases the brothers' storytelling acumen, and reinforces their tales as timeless for both children and for scholars.” (Publishers Weekly ) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) is the author, along with his brother Wilhelm, of the classic tales of folklore and fantasy collectively known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Also a librarian and dictionary writer, Jacob was an acclaimed linguist and academic who elaborated "Grimm's Law," a major historical breakthrough in the development of the study of linguistics.

Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) studied law in the early 1800s but became much better known as an accomplished and passionate storyteller and, with his brother Jacob, one of the Grimm Brothers, who gave the world the groundbreaking and fantastic collection of folklore, fairy stories, and fantasy tales we now call Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Maria Tatar chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. She is the author of Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood, Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood and many other books on folklore and fairy stories. She is also the editor and translator of The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, The Annotated Peter Pan, The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition and The Grimm Reader. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (September 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393058484
• ISBN-13: 978-0393058482
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 1.4 x 10.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #412,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

114 of 118 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An imaginative feast October 24, 2004

By Luan Gaines HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Like the others in this series (The Annotated Wizard of Oz, The Annotated A Christmas Story), this volume is beautifully illustrated and annotated with details that personalize the age-old tales, revealing original publishers names and themes, a behind-the-scenes peek at the historical background of those fairy tales we have loved since childhood.

In a very personal introduction, A.S. Byatt speaks of her own yearning for myth and fantasy as a young girl: talking birds, unicorns, princesses, imps and spun gold, hair cascading down the length of a turret. Byatt cautions us to remember the violent nature of the past and that the acceptance of violence was a part of everyday life; hence, the physical became part of the narrative, public hangings common to the times. The beauty of fairy tales is that limbs grow back and the sleeper awakens, once more alive.

The editor/translator has reassembled original Grimm stories in the order they were first seen by the public. There are the most familiar, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and The Golden Goose; but Tater goes even further, adding stories that were removed, most originally meant for adults, later considered too bawdy for the consumption of children. And Tater has another surprise in this volume: a biographical essay on the Grimm Brothers, their personal lives and political views, as well as the original prefaces.

This book is a treasure on many levels, the early appreciation of fantasy read as a child, the historical implications of those tales, the psychology that underlies the power of story and man's need for images to act great battles of good and evil. Far deeper than mere storytelling, the Tales of the Brothers Grimm are the sturm und drang of the German culture, powerful and political, pagan and pure, complex and simple. Cultural complications aside, this tome stimulates curiosity at every turn, the beginning of a great adventure even adults can enjoy.

These wonderful, familiar stories are brought to life by the exquisite illustrations, both black and white and full color, as well as the annotated remarks that add such flavor to the interpretation. A visual and intellectual treat, The Annotated Brothers Grimm is a feast of possibilities, fancies, fears and dreams. The impossible is possible. It is all a matter of imagination. Luan Gaines/2004.

60 of 63 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book with excellent content August 9, 2005

By J. Campbell

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was surprised by the depth and value of the content in such a beautiful, "coffee-table" book. This is a collection of the Grimm's Fairy Tales with annotations describing each tale, where it fit within the collecting work of the Grimms', and what individual allusions and themes might mean throughout each text.

Readers beware: this is not a children's book. Rather, it might be read by an adult to children, but it contains much thoroughly overblown academic delvings into the psychosocial an psychosexual meanings supposedly behind many of the tales. It also does not shy away from bringing the readers attention to all of the sexual dimensions found in various other forms of the tales.

All that said, this is a valuable book chronicling the history of the Grimms' collection, illustrating and adding to the content in many helpful and enjoyable ways.

136 of 150 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars The annotations were less than enthralling February 23, 2008

By T. Simons TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This edition has a great deal to go for it. It is beautifully illustrated, contains the "authoritative" direct 1857 versions of many of the Grimm's collected tales, and it includes several tales which have been bowdlerized out of more modern editions, such as "The Jew in the Brambles."

Despite these virtues, however, it has two distinct flaws.

1) It is not complete. Rather than include the complete collection of stories, it focuses on the better-known stories such as Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, etc. It does include many lesser-known stories, but it doesn't have them all.

2) I personally found the annotations somewhat pointless. Rather than provide new information, or explicate the period germanic background from which the tales were derived, or provide much information about the Grimm's scholarly research, they merely provided the annotator's own personal interpretation of the story, i.e., "fetched some large stones and filled the wolf's belly with them. The stones have been read as a sign of sterility, but they are more likely an appropriate retaliation for the incorporation of Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother."

I'm not sure this volume ever really made up its mind as to its target audience. It includes too many stories with clearly offensive themes (again, "The Jew in the Brambles") to be suitable for young children, but at the same time, the annotations do not appear to be aimed at scholarly readers, and the wealth of illustration gives the impression the book is aimed at young audiences after all.

I personally would have been happier with a volume that included the entire collection of Grimm's tales and detailed, factual annotations. Other readers might prefer a cozy illustrated volume of Grimm's Greatest Hits with annotations to spell out the complicated parts ("Wait, the wolf is a sexual predator?!"). This volume seemed to attempt to strike at both those targets, and hit neither (although it fell closer to the second).