Although opposed to French rule, Jacob takes a post as royal librarian to Jeéroôme Bonaparte. This position allows him time to pursue his scholarly interests as well as to support his siblings financially. Goethe’s Faust, Part I is published. Ludwig von Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is per formed for the first time on December 22.

1811Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is published.
1812The first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Stories), volume 1, is published; it comprises eighty-six tales gleaned from oral tradition. In England, George Gordon, Lord Byron, publishes the first two can tos of his narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The United States declares war on Great Britain; the war ends in 1815.
1813The French withdraw from Kassel, and Napoleéon’s armies are defeated throughout Europe. Jacob Grimm is named to the Hessian peace delegation and goes to France and Vienna on diplomatic missions. When he returns from his professional travels, Jacob sees that political factions al ready undermine his hopes for a unified Germany. Wil helm becomes secretary to the royal librarian in Kassel.
The brothers publish the first of their three-volume col lection of writings on folklore, linguistics, and medieval studies, Altdeutsche Wälder (Old German Forests). In England, Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice.
1814Friedrich Karl von Savigny publishes Vom Beruf unsrer Zeit für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft (The Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence).
1815The second volume of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Stories) is published, comprising seventy ad ditional tales. The Grimm brothers publish Der arme Heinrich von Harmann von der Aue (Poor Heinrich by Harmann von der Aue), a medieval epic, with their scholarly com mentary; Lieder der alten Edda (Lays from the Elder Edda), a compilation/study of Teutonic folk stories; and volume 2 of Altdeutsche Wälder (Old German Forests). Von Savigny pub lishes the first of his six-volume Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter (History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages).
1816Jacob is granted a position as second librarian in Kassel. The Grimms publish volume 3 of Altdeutsche Wälder and the two-volume Deutsche Sagen (German Legends).
1818Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is first published in En gland in 1818.
1819Jacob publishes the first volume of Deutsche Grammatik (German Grammar), a linguistic study considered the foun dation of German philology; the subsequent three vol umes are published in 1826, 1831, and 1837. Wilhelm takes on primary responsibility for editing future editions of Children’s and Household Stories. Both brothers are awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Mar burg. English poet John Keats publishes “Ode on a Gre cian Urn.”
1820Sir Walter Scott’s historical romance Ivanhoe is published.
1824Russian poet, playwright, and novelist Alexsandr Pushkin writes the historical tragedy Boris Godunov.
1825Wilhelm Grimm marries Henriette Dorothea Wild, a ma jor contributor to the brothers’ collection of folktales; the couple has been acquainted for more than twenty years.
1826The brothers publish Irische Elfenmärchen (Irish Fairy Tales), a translation, with an introductory essay by the Grimms, of Thomas Crofton Croker’s Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1825).
1829When Jacob is overlooked for an expected promotion, the siblings resign their posts in protest and move to Goöttin gen, where they work as professors of German literature at the university.
1831Goethe completes Faust, Part II; he dies the following year in Weimar.
1835Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen publishes his first collection of fairy tales.
1836In the United States, Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his essay “Nature,” a major work of Transcendentalist philos ophy.
1837Ernst August (Ernest Augustus) II is crowned king and suspends the constitution of the German state of Hano ver, dissolves the parliament, and requires an oath of al legiance from all civil servants. The Grimm brothers join in protest against the absolutist monarchy and are dis missed from their university positions. In financial diffi culty, they begin work on the Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary), a lexicographical history of the German lan guage. In England, Queen Victoria is crowned; Charles Dickens publishes Pickwick Papers. American Samuel Morse invents the telegraph.
1840Through the influence of friends the Grimms receive pro fessorships at the University of Berlin, where they con tinue their work on the German Dictionary and other works in philology, linguistics, and German literature.
1843Dickens publishes A Christmas Carol and Martin Chuzzlewit.
1845In the United States, Edgar Allan Poe publishes “The Raven.”
1847In England, Charlotte Bronteö’s novel Jane Eyre is pub lished, as are works by her two sisters, Emily (Wuthering Heights) and Anne (Agnes Grey).
1848After the German revolution, the Grimm brothers are elected to the civil parliament and attend the National Assembly as representatives. The revolutionary movement is short-lived; the brothers leave politics disappointed. Ja cob publishes the important two-volume philological study Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (History of the German Language) and retires from teaching to do research. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish Das Kommunistische Manifest (The Communist Manifesto).
1851American writer Herman Melville publishes Moby-Dick, or The Whale.
1852Wilhelm Grimm retires from his university post. In their final years the brothers devote their energies to complet ing the German Dictionary. Unfortunately, the undertaking is too grand even for the Grimms; they die before reach ing the letter G; twentieth-century scholars will complete the dictionary. British polymath Peter Mark Roget pub lishes the first edition of his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases.
1855American teacher Thomas Bulfinch publishes The Age of Fable, an introduction to Greek, Roman, Celtic, and Scan dinavian mythology.
1858Work begins on the Oxford English Dictionary.
1859Wilhelm Grimm dies on December 16. Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution by natural selection.
1863Jacob Grimm dies on September 20. In the United States, President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Ad dress.

Introduction

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Originally intended for adults, the Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Stories) of the Brothers Grimm has become not only the world’s most important collection of folk and fairy tales, but also the central work in the literary culture of childhood. Paradoxically, the tales have been criticized ever since they first appeared as inappropriate for children—too frank about sex, too violent, too dark. The Grimms themselves began censoring the sex as they brought out successive editions, and subsequent editors and translators have continued the process, modifying the violence as well.