GRIMM (WILHELM)


Autograph letter signed ("Wilh. Grimm"), in German, to "Werthgeschätzter Freund" [?his publisher Dietrich of Göttingen], written after receiving the remaining copies of the Fairy Tales from Leipzig, and telling him how delighted he is with them ("...The wrapper and title-page of the new edition are lovely and delicate, the paper is good, the print sharp and clear. If it should go into another printing, then we could discuss a new layout. I've given my brother a few ideas, which he will try out when he has a chance. He has also found and engraved what seems to me a very nice title page for the Fairy Tales, but in large quarto format, so it will be difficult to make smaller. It comes from his collection of 100 engravings which will be published soon by [T.D.] Weigel in Leipzig; there is already a proof copy. As an art lover you will surely take a look at it. Have you seen Graf Poggi's little pictures for the individual tales? There are some very pretty ones among them. Might there be any English woodcuts, for the English translation?..."); he nevertheless grumbles that Herr Fischer [the bookseller Theodor Fischer] is being difficult again and promises to let him know if Fischer is not prepared to pay the 200 thalers at the end of November; he adds at the end of the letter that he encloses a note for [Bettina] von Arnim in which he urges her to have the twelve copies of [Achim von] Arnim's works sent to him ("...The work has only just reached the bookshops here. The success of the enterprise however is uncertain, yet it would be an injustice on the part of the German public not to recognise the work of this poet. There are fine and brilliant things in these two volumes..."), 2 pages, on flimsy wove watermarked [Wha]tman paper, paper guard at left-hand edge, old paper repair on verso (partly covering the contemporary docket), barely-perceptible browning where originally folded, small nick in lower margin, 8vo, Cassel, 8 November 1839
|'MY BROTHER... HAS ALSO FOUND AND ENGRAVED WHAT SEEMS TO ME A VERY NICE TITLE PAGE FOR THE FAIRY TALES' – WILHELM GRIMM DISCUSSES A NEW EDITION OF HIS FAIRY TALES, AND SALUTES THE GENIUS OF ACHIM VON ARNIM, his fellow folklorist, the first two volumes of whose posthumous collected works had just been published, edited and with an introduction by Grimm.It had been Achim von Arnim, together with his brother-in-law Clemens Bretano, who had gathered (and partly composed) the folk poems of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, so beloved of Mahler and other composers; and it had been Clemens who first suggested to the Brothers Grimm that they collect folk tales for him, the manuscript of which Clemens then managed to lose; only for Achim to suggest that they start again and have the collection published on their own account. Achim's suggestion bore fruit in the first volume of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) which appeared in 1812 and the second in 1815, with the first collected edition appearing in 1819, with an etched frontispiece by Wilhelm and Jacob's brother, Ludwig Emil (to whom Wilhelm refers in our letter).Wilhelm was to have sole responsibility for later editions, these appearing in two forms, namely the complete tales, known as the Large Edition, and a one-volume selection, known as the Small Edition; the 4th Small Edition appearing in 1839 and 4th Large Edition in 1840, both published by Dietrich of Göttingen. But it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that the Grimm Brothers' tales began to enjoy widespread popularity and renown: for a full analysis, see Ruth B. Bottigheimer, ʻThe Publishing History of Grimms' Tales: Reception at the Cash Register' in Grimms' Fairy Tales: Responses, Reactions, Revisions, edited by Donald Haase, 1993, pp.78-101.Our letter also refers to Grimm's correspondence with Achim's widow, the incomparable Bettina von Arnim, friend of Goethe and Beethoven, who a few months earlier had been solicited by Robert Schumann for compositions and essays for his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (he was to dedicate his last piano cycle Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133, to her). Achim and Bettina's daughter, Gisela, was to marry Wilhelm Grimm's son, Herman; and was to be an author of folk stories herself, members of her circle including Hans Christian Andersen.An English translation of the Grimms' fairy tales had first appeared in 1823, in a sanitised version by Edgar Taylor, illustrated by Cruikshank (and selling far better than the German). The new edition, much altered, to which Grimm refers in our letter, appeared in 1839, under the title Gammer Grethel; or German Fairy Tales, and Popular Stories, from the Collection of M.M. Grimm, and Other Sources.