04 Jan 2022
On This Day
4 January 2022 Susannah

4 January 1785: Jacob Grimm is born

Jacob Grimm & Children and Household Tales 1812

The Fairy Tale Road in Germany commences where the Brothers Grimm were born (Hanau), and ends at the place of one of their most famous fairy tales, The Bremen Town Musicians. Established in 1975, it is 596km long and runs through the towns and landscapes where the brothers collected and published their fairy tale collection. [1]

Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm was a German author, linguist and folklorist, born on 4 January 1785, in Hanau in Hesse-Kassel, (part of The Holy Roman Empire until 1806). He is best known as the co-editor of Grimms’ Fairy Tales with his younger brother Wilhelm Grimm. Together, they were the literary duo known as the Brothers Grimm.

From early youth, until their death, the brothers were very close friends, always complementing each other and the two men lived and worked together their entire lives, even after Wilhelm married.

Philipp Grimm, the boy’s father, died while Jacob was a child, and his mother was left with very small means. Her sister helped to support and educate the family and the brothers showed their brilliant abilities while they were still young. After graduating from the local School, the brothers continued their education at Marburg University, studying law degrees. In addition to his law degree, Jacob later received honorary doctorates from the University of Marburg, Berlin University, and Berslau University.

Throughout his life, Jacob was employed in several positions, including secretariat of the War Office, librarian for King Jérôme Bonaparte’s private library, and chair of archaeology and librarianship at the University of Göttingen in Hanover.

With his brother Wilhelm, Jacob collected traditional German folk tales, publishing their first volume, Children and Household Tales, in 1812 which contained 86 stories. Stories were added and removed from one edition to the next, until the seventh edition, published in 1857, held 210 tales. Some later editions were illustrated.

The boldest and most far-reaching of Jacob’s works was The German Dictionary, which was started in 1838 and first published in 1854. Jacob anticipated it would take 10 years; however, the undertaking was so large that it was impossible for the brothers to complete it, and it was finally completed by scholars in 1961. It is the largest and most comprehensive dictionary of the German language in existence.

In 1863, after a long career as an academic and librarian, Jacob Grimm died in Berlin at the age of 78, working until the very end of his life.