Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) were brothers from Hanau in Hesse who studied law at Marburg and became librarians, philologists and professors. Encouraged by the Romantic interest in native German poetry, they collected folk tales from friends, family and acquaintances in and around Kassel and published them as Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) in 1812 and 1815; Wilhelm revised the collection through seven editions to 1857. Jacob also wrote the German Grammar, in which he described the sound changes now called Grimm's law. In 1837 both were dismissed from the University of Göttingen as members of the Göttingen Seven who protested the King of Hanover's revocation of the constitution, and from 1841 they worked in Berlin on the great German Dictionary.
Household Stories is Lucy Crane's English translation of fifty-two tales chosen from the Brothers Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmärchen, first published in London by Macmillan in 1882 with pictures by her brother Walter Crane; the library text follows a later reprint and omits the illustrations. The selection mixes the most famous wonder tales with comic stories, animal fables and short nursery pieces.
