Wilhelm Grimm Is Gratified to Receive a Treatise on “Fairy Tales”

The Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jacob, are best known for popularizing fairy tales that today are as popular as ever and that have permeated our society an ocean and two centuries away from their original work.  Their tales includes Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.  But the brothers were more than just story-tellers.  They were academics, linguists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors.  

The brothers believed in German national unity and used the unity of German folklore to draw the country together. They worked to discover and crystallize a kind of Germanness in the stories they collected because they believed that folklore contained kernels of ancient laws, mythologies and beliefs, crucial to understanding the essence of culture.

In the 1840s, the brothers were offered teaching posts at the University of Berlin. In addition, the Academy of Sciences offered them stipends to continue their research. Once they had established the household in Berlin, they directed their efforts towards the work on a German dictionary and continued to publish their research. Jacob turned his attention to researching German legal traditions and the history of the German language, which was published in the late 1840s and early 1850s; meanwhile Wilhelm began researching medieval literature while at the same time editing new editions of some of his fairy tales.

In the 1850s, after retiring from teaching, the brothers devoted themselves to the German Dictionary.  But people from around the world continued to send them their research on fairy tales, for which the name Grimm was, and remains, synonymous.

Karl Gustav Homeyer studied law at the universities of Berlin, Göttingen and Heidelberg. He settled at the University of Berlin, where he became professor of law in 1827.  His principal works are his editions of the Sachsenspiegel, the final edition of which was published in 1861, containing important sources of Saxon and low German law.  He no doubt became close with the Grimm Brothers during their long association in Berlin.

Autograph letter signed, Berlin, March 10 1858, to a Mr. Williams, who had sent him an analysis of fairy tales, quite possibly Grimm’s own, no doubt drawing a connection between them and the legal and social traditions.  "I am very grateful to Mr. Williams for the kindness of sending me his treatise on the fairy tales which contains a valuable insight.  I had the good fortune of drawing Homeyer's attention to it right away, who will profit the most from this study.  In wishing further good progress on this read, I am with utmost esteem, Wilhelm Grimm."  Autographs of Grimm are not common.

Wilhelm died of an infection in Berlin in 1859, and Jacob, deeply upset at his brother's death, became increasingly reclusive. He continued work on the dictionary until his own death in 1863.