Brothers Grimm

NAME Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm , collectively known as The Brothers Grimm.

WHAT FAMOUS FOR They are world-famous for compiling and publishing Grimm’s Fairy Tales, a landmark collection of German folk and fairy stories. These included classics such as Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and Cinderella.

BIRTH Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm was born on January 4, 1785, in Hanau in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, within the Holy Roman Empire. Wilhelm Carl Grimm was born fourteen months later on February 24, 1786, in the same town. Hanau was located in present-day Germany, just east of Frankfurt.

FAMILY BACKGROUND Their father, Philipp Wilhelm Grimm, was a jurist and lawyer who served as town clerk in Hanau and later as a district magistrate (Amtmann) and justiciary in Steinau. Their mother, Dorothea Grimm (née Zimmer), was the daughter of a Kassel city councilman. 

They were the second and third eldest of six surviving children. Their family was part of the educated elite, which provided them with a strong foundation for their intellectual pursuits. Their surviving siblings included Carl, who pursued a commercial education and worked as a language teacher; Ferdinand, a talented poet who became a proof-reader in Berlin; Ludwig Emil, who became a renowned painter and illustrator; and their sister Charlotte (nicknamed "Lotte"), who managed the household after their mother's death.

CHILDHOOD The brothers spent their formative years first in Hanau, then moved to the countryside town of Steinau in 1791 when their father took employment there as a district magistrate. The family lived in "a large home surrounded by fields" and became prominent community members. Biographer Jack Zipes notes that the brothers were "happy in Steinau and clearly fond of country life". (1)

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm lived in this house in Steinau from 1791 to 1796 by Alexander Hoernigk

Tragedy struck the family when their father died of pneumonia in 1796, when Jacob was 11 and Wilhelm was 10, causing "great poverty for the large family". Their mother was forced to relinquish servants and their large house, depending on financial support from relatives.

EDUCATION They received their early education at home from Lutheran private tutors, which instilled in the brothers a lifelong religious faith. 

Following their father's death, the brothers attended local schools before moving to Kassel in 1798 to attend the prestigious Friedrichsgymnasium, arranged and paid for by their aunt. The loss of male financial support made them "rely entirely on each other and become exceptionally close". 

Despite their inferior social status compared to "high-born" students, both brothers "excelled in their studies," with Jacob graduating at the head of his class in 1803 and Wilhelm in 1804. 

They then attended the University of Marburg, a small institution with about 200 students. Initially disqualified from admission due to their social standing, they had to request a dispensation to study law. Their poverty excluded them from stipends and university social life, but "their outsider status worked in their favor and they pursued their studies with extra vigor". (1)

CAREER RECORD 1802-1806. The brothers' academic careers began at the University of Marburg, where they studied law. 

1805 Jacob worked as research assistant to Professor Friedrich von Savigny in Paris. After returning, he took a position with the Hessian War Commission to support his family. 

1806 Both brothers worked as librarians at the Hessian state library in Kassel. 

1808 Jacob served as private librarian to King Jérôme of Westphalia and as auditeur of the Conseil d'État. He participated in diplomatic missions to recover books and paintings taken by the French and attended the Congress of Vienna 1814-1815. 

1814 Wilhelm became secretary at the Elector's library in Kassel, with Jacob joining him there in 1816. 

1829 They moved to the University of Göttingen as librarians and professors. 

1837 They were dismissed as part of the "Göttingen Seven" for protesting against King Ernest Augustus of Hanover. 

1840 They accepted positions at the University of Berlin, where they remained until retirement

APPEARANCE Both brothers were described as slender with scholarly bearing. Jacob was described as taller with a more serious and reserved demeanor. Wilhelm, on the other hand, was shorter with sharply cut features and often appeared more cheerful and gentle.

Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in 1847 (daguerreotype)

FASHION The Grimm brothers dressed in the conservative, academic fashion of their time, favoring dark suits and formal attire appropriate for their scholarly position

CHARACTER Jacob was known for his serious, scholarly, and somewhat austere character. He was the more focused and methodical of the two, the primary driver of their linguistic and historical research.  Jacob was a resolute and unconventional man, reserved to the point that even laughing aloud made him uneasy. He had a compulsion to impose order on everything around him and found his true comfort only when alone with his cherished books. 

Wilhelm, by contrast, was warm, outgoing, and far more at ease in the company of others. He was known for his gentle and more artistic nature. He was particularly skilled at refining the collected fairy tales, adding the literary flair and charm that made them so popular. Despite their different temperaments, they were deeply devoted to each other. (2)

SPEAKING VOICE Contemporaries noted that Jacob spoke with authority and precision, while Wilhelm’s voice was warmer and more approachable.

SENSE OF HUMOUR Though their tales are often grim and dark, both brothers had a dry wit and delighted in ironic turns of folk stories. However, the reserved Jacob reportedly "felt uncomfortable when he had to laugh aloud." (2)

RELATIONSHIPS Wilhelm married Henriette Dorothea "Dortchen" Wild on May 15, 1825, "a pharmacist's daughter and childhood friend who had given the brothers several tales". Dortchen "took over the running of the entire Grimm household after many years of male-only management".  (2)

Wilhelm and Dortchen had four children: Jacob (born and died in 1826), Herman (1828-1901, who became a literary and art historian), Rudolf (1830-89, a jurist), and Auguste (1832-1919). The brothers maintained lifelong friendships with scholars across Europe, including "the jurists Savigny and Karl Friedrich Eichhorn; the historians Friedrich Dahlmann, Georg Gottfried Cervinus, and Jules Michelet; and the philologists Karl Lachmann".

Jacob never married, dedicating his life to his scholarly work. He lived with Wilhelm and his household and their living arrangement allowed them to collaborate constantly on their work.

The brothers maintained lifelong friendships with scholars across Europe.

MONEY AND FAME The brothers experienced significant financial hardship throughout their early lives. After their father's death in 1796, "great poverty" affected the family. During their university years, they were "excluded even from tuition aid" and "their poverty kept them from student activities or university social life". 

They lived modestly for much of their lives, surviving on academic posts and book royalties. After they were dismissed in 1837 for protesting against King Ernest Augustus of Hanover. they were "without income and again in extreme financial difficulty," forcing them to depend "on friends and supporters for financial assistance".  (1)

Their situation improved when they secured positions at the University of Berlin in 1840, 

Their fame grew over time, especially with the international success of their fairy tales, but they remained modest and dedicated to their scholarly pursuits.

FOOD AND DRINK Their early poverty meant food was often scarce, with Wilhelm noting they ate "only three portions and only once a day" during particularly difficult times. (1)  

As members of the German bourgeoisie, they would have partaken in the typical German diet of the time, including hearty meals and wine.

MUSIC AND ARTS The brothers had a deep appreciation for the arts, particularly German folk music and poetry. Their interest in these areas was intertwined with their academic work, as they believed that folklore and language were expressions of a nation's soul.

Wilhelm was particularly drawn to the arts, and loved music. His diary entries reveal him "enjoying a performance of  A Midsummer Night's Dream, wandering through botanical gardens".  (3)

GRIMMS' FAIRY TALES Grimm’s Fairy Tales—or, to give it its rather less snappy original title, Children’s and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen)—is one of those books that somehow manages to be both cozy and terrifying at the same time. First published in two volumes in 1812 and 1815, it began with 156 stories and by the time the brothers were done tinkering with it in 1857, it had swollen to a mighty 200 tales and 10 legends, enough to keep generations of children awake at night.

Frontispiece used for the first volume of the 1840 4th edition

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm weren’t really trying to delight children at all. They were earnest scholars, bent on preserving the oral traditions of a Germany they feared was being swept away by war and modernity. They gathered material from all sorts of sources—neighbours, rural storytellers, middle-class acquaintances—often recording the stories with a straight scholarly face. The early versions were closer to what you’d actually hear by a hearth fire: brusque, surreal, sometimes startlingly violent. Only later, when the books started attracting a younger audience, did the brothers begin sanding off the sharper edges (though not always—the villains often met positively inventive ends).

Still, what tales they gave us: Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, The Golden Goose. They’ve since become archetypes of fantasy and psychology alike, endlessly recycled into plays, ballets, novels, and films. It is no exaggeration to say that nearly every modern fairy tale owes a debt to the Grimms.

In 19th-century Germany, the Grimms’ book was rivalled in popularity only by the Bible, which is not a bad outcome for what began as a side project in folklore. Over time, it became the world’s most famous collection of folk tales, the brothers’ painstaking methods laying the groundwork for the academic study of folklore and giving Germans a sense of shared cultural identity along the way.

Today the collection sits proudly in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Registry, which seems fitting for a book that has terrified, comforted, and inspired readers for more than two centuries.

LITERATURE The brothers dedicated their lives to literary scholarship, beginning with their collection of folklore and fairy tales. Their work was influenced by the ideas of Johann Gottfried Herder, who believed German literature should revert to simpler forms of Volkspoesie (natural poetry) rather than Kunstpoesie (artistic poetry). 

Their most significant literary achievement, aside from the fairy tales, was the beginning of the German Dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch), a massive undertaking that aimed to document the history and etymology of the German language. They also produced also scholarly works on German grammar, mythology, and legal traditions.

NATURE The brothers were fond of country life and their fairy tales often reflected deep ties to forests, rivers, and countryside landscapes, the settings where oral traditions had lived for centuries.

"Hansel and Gretel" (1909), illustrated by Arthur Rackham,

PETS There is no record of them keeping pets, though animals frequently appeared as symbolic figures in their tales.

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Their primary hobbies were their scholarly pursuits. They spent countless hours in libraries, archives, and traveling to collect stories and linguistic data. Beyond their academic work, Wilhelm's interests in music and theater suggest broader cultural engagement.

SCIENCE AND MATHS They were not scientists in the modern sense, but their systematic approach to folklore and language resembled the rigor of scientific classification.

Jacob's linguistic work led to his formulation of Grimm's law, a significant contribution to the field of phonetics and historical linguistics. This law described how consonants from Indo-European transformed as they entered German, establishing Jacob as a distinguished scholar in the scientific study of language.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY The brothers were influenced by the Romantic philosophical movement, which emphasized the importance of national identity, folk traditions, and the spiritual connection to the past. Their work can be seen as a direct application of these philosophical ideas.

The Brothers Grimm were raised as Lutherans in a strict religious household, and their stories frequently included Christian motifs and spirituality. Their father’s influence and early upbringing instilled a lifelong religious faith, and many tales they collected or adapted reflect underlying Christian morals and themes. Some sources debate whether they leaned toward Lutheranism or Reformed Calvinist theology, but most accounts confirm their background as Lutherans.

POLITICS The brothers demonstrated liberal political convictions through their participation in the Göttingen Seven protest in 1837, where they opposed King Ernest Augustus of Hanover's repeal of the constitution. This act of civil disobedience cost them their university positions.

After the revolutions of 1848, they were elected to civil parliament, with Jacob becoming "a prominent member of the National Assembly at Mainz". However, their political activities were short-lived as their hopes for German unification dwindled. (1)

SCANDAL The brothers' involvement in the Göttingen Seven protest was the most significant controversial episode of their lives, resulting in their dismissal from the university and Jacob's exile from Hanover.

The Göttingen Seven. Top row: Wilhelm Grimm, Jacob Grimm.

Their fairy tales caused controversy: critics attacked the early editions for sexual references (later removed) and for increased violence—such as the wicked queen in Snow White being forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she died, or Rapunzel’s prince being blinded in thorns after falling from the tower.

MILITARY RECORD The Grimm brothers had no military service. Their lives were dedicated to academia and research.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Both brothers suffered from health issues. Wilhelm, in particular, was often ill and had a frail constitution including missing a year of school due to scarlet fever. He remained without regular employment until 1814 partly because of his ill health. Jacob remained active longer, though he too weakened with age.

HOMES The brothers lived in various locations throughout their lives: born in Hanau, raised in Steinau, educated in Kassel, studied at Marburg, worked in Kassel again, then Göttingen, and finally Berlin. 

TRAVEL Jacob was more peripatetic than Wilhelm, undertaking "many journeys for scientific investigations, visiting France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Denmark, and Sweden". His diplomatic work also required travel to Paris (twice in 1814-15) and participation in the Congress of Vienna. (4)

DEATH Wilhelm died first, succumbing to an infection in Berlin on December 16, 1859, at age 73. Jacob, "deeply upset by his death, became increasingly reclusive" but continued working on their German Dictionary until his own death on September 20, 1863, at age 78. Symbolically, Zipes notes that "the last word was Frucht (fruit)" in their dictionary work. Both brothers are buried in the Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof in Berlin. (1)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA The brothers have been portrayed in various modern media adaptations, and numerous documentaries about their work. Notable examples include the film The Brothers Grimm (2005) directed by Terry Gilliam and the TV series Grimm (2011-2017), which uses their name and stories as a basis for a modern fantasy narrative.

Their fairy tales continue to inspire countless adaptations across all media formats.

ACHIEVEMENTS Published Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1812), one of the most influential works in world literature.

Preserved German oral tradition and gave enduring form to stories like Snow White, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, and Cinderella.

Contributed to the study of linguistics with works on German grammar, mythology, and their unfinished but groundbreaking German Dictionary.

Their tales inspired countless adaptations in literature, theater, film, and animation, shaping Western culture’s understanding of fairy tales.

Sources: (1) The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World by Jack Zipes (2) Grimm Welt (3) New Yorker (4) Encyclopedia Britannica