Child murder, domestic slavery, abusive families, cannibalism and intergenerational hatred — what could be better for the festive fireside than a new edition of Grimms’ fairy stories? There hasn’t been a straight translation in English of the original 1812 edition; most retellers in English relied on revised versions by Wilhelm Grimm. Now Jack Zipes has produced the complete first edition of The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. It’s a good translation, faithful to the simple character of the originals.
It’s been well received by the fairytale industry, writers and academics who like to remind us that the original versions were rawer than Wilhelm’s family-friendlier edition of 1857. Mind you, a couple of years ago I was sent a version of ‘Red Riding Hood’ that ended with RRH and the wolf making friends. Poor Wilhelm’s pieties had nothing on ours.
Zipes’s view is that the original versions are ‘stunning narratives’ precisely because they are so blunt and unpretentious.
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