Household Tales

Household Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is a collection of over 200 children's fairy tales. The book includes many favourites, including The Frog King, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, and Rumpelstiltskin, collected by two of the most famous storytellers in history.

The first edition of the book contained 86 stories, but by the time the seventh edition was published, that number had increased to 210. There were also changes across editions, such as turning the wicked mother in Snow White and Hansel and Gretel into a wicked stepmother, and the removal of some mild sexual references.

However, the violence in the stories not only remained but often increased, particularly in the punishment of villains. The collection inspired many later folklorists, including the Russian Alexander Afanasyev, the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, the English Joseph Jacobs, and Jeremiah Curtin, an American collector of Irish tales. This English translation by Margaret Hunt was first published in 1884.