The Brothers Grimm: life of the week

Hello and welcome to Life of the Week from History Extra, where leading historians delve into the lives of history's most intriguing and significant figures. From Snow White to Sleeping Beauty, the brothers Grimm are best known for their volumes of fairy tales. But collecting and curating these tales for posterity was only one of the ambitious projects the brothers undertook in the first half of the 19th century. To find out more, Ellie Cawthorne spoke to the author of a new biography of the Grims, Anne Schmiesing. Together, they chart the lives of Jakob and Wilhelm, exploring their extremely close relationship, love of folklore, political leanings, and attempts to create a German dictionary.

Thank you for joining me Anne to talk about the Brothers Grimm today. I think most people might have heard their names and they will associate the name with fairy tales, but as you note in your biography of The Brothers Grimm, people might not even know the individual brothers' names and they might not know much about their lives or anything else that they did, so hopefully we're going to rectify that today. But first of all, what interested you in the Brothers Grimm? So I have long taught a course on fairy tales of Germany with a large emphasis on the works of the brothers Grimm. And I've also given a lot of public lectures over the years on the Grimms.

And I've always been struck by how interested audiences have been in the Grimms and to find out that so many of the conceptions that they had about the Grims and their fairy tales are myths, some of them myths that originated even as far back as the 19th century, and especially since so many of us grew up thinking of fairy tales with respect to Disney, to find out that the Grimms fairy tales are actually very different. So I was really inspired to learn more about the Grimms and delve into not only their fairy tale collection, but so many of their other amazing achievements and the fascinating time in which they lived. And we will definitely come into the fairy tale collection, so people don't need to worry about that. But let's talk a bit about their lives first.

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