Professional and Avocational Photographs
  

COMMENTS
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Jacob (1785 - 1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1886 - 1859), linguists, lexicographers &
authors, collected, rewrote and published over 200 ancient works of germanic folklore
during the 19th century. Among them CINDERELLA, SLEEPING BEAUTY, HAENSEL
AND GRETEL, LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD & SNOW WHITE, to name just a few.
(Many of those fairy tales were, in their original versions, extremely violent and cruel.
But it should be remembered, that these were cautionary tales for children, in an age
that relied on fear to instill discipline. They were "sanitized" by the brothers Grimm.)

The house in Steinau, which today serves as a museum, is were the brothers enjoyed
much of their childhood years. Some of their most productive adult years were spent
in the nearby District capital Kassel. Both brothers received honorary doctorates from
universities in Marburg, Berlin and Breslau. When they were offered teaching positions
at the University of Berlin, they moved that city, and there began work on what was to
be the definitive dictionary of the German Language. They only lived to publish the first
volume in 1854. Wilhelm died of an infection in Berlin in 1859, and Jacob, deeply upset
by his brother's death, became increasingly reclusive. He continued work on the dictionary
until his own death in 1863. The brothers' graves are in the Berlin-Schoeneberg Cemetery.