The Grimmest of Grimm

Book excerpt: The stories collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 19th century reflected life as known to the German people of the time - fantastic, yet often unpredictable and pernicious. Patriotic folklorists, they began their collection of tales with the intent of preserving the endangered German oral tradition from a Napoleonic rule intent on suppressing local culture. From their earliest release and translation, conservative parents and ecclesiastics disparaged the tales for their vestigial, raw, Gothic content and the brothers and a myriad of editors began to soften them to demure morality and sweetness to make appeal to the upper classes what began as earthy peasant fare. This is no such revision, sanitized of objectionable material; these are the grimmest. Cannibalism, child abuse, dismemberment, slaughter of innocents, the walking dead & deals with the devil are all prevalent in these lesser-known works of the brothers Grimm, here lushly illustrated for the sick little monkey that is your inner child. Featuring 94 illustrations by Terry Beal, Benchacco, Jon Ferril, Luc Hebert, Kelly Levy, Kathryn McLaughlin, Karen Petroff, Katy Rose & Cyrus Rua.