Little People

The names of the storytellers, the Brothers Grimm, are known to children and adults all over the world. However, Jacob and Wilhelm were not only writers, but also famous scholars. They made a huge contribution to the development of German... literature and culture as a whole: they provided a systematic description of German grammar, began compiling the first dictionary of the German language (work on it lasted 120 years), and collected numerous folk tales and legends.
The Brothers Grimm were born in the town of Hanau, in a family of a lawyer. Jacob Grimm was born in 1785, and Wilhelm a year later; they had six younger brothers and a sister. To provide for his children, the father had to work tirelessly, knowing no rest. He passed away young: his body could not cope with pneumonia. The boys' mother saw how curious and diligent her older sons were, and despite financial difficulties, she sent them to study at the lyceum. The brothers completed their full course of study in 4 years (twice as fast as usual) and enrolled in the law department of Marburg University. There, they became fascinated with literature and dedicated their limited free time to studying German poetry. Later, the Brothers Grimm began to collect and study the fairy tales of the German people.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were professors at the University of Göttingen, and later taught at the University of Berlin; they were members of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. The Brothers Grimm published over 200 folk tales. This collection includes 6 of them. Young readers will meet the famous Snow White, the vain little sparrow king, as well as witches and house spirits, grateful ants and dishonorable kings, a homeless dog and hungry ravens. Despite the variety of characters and plots, all these stories share one thing: each of them tells about help, mercy, and justice - after all, this is what keeps the world going