Wilhelm Grimm biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Wilhelm Carl Grimm was born on February 24, 1786, in the town of Hanau, Germany, to Dorothea and Philipp Grimm. Wilhelm Grimm was the second oldest of six siblings, and would later embark on an industrious writing and scholarly career with his older brother, Jacob.

Wilhelm and Jacob studied law at the University of Marburg from 1802 to 1806, following the path of their lawyer father. Due to health issues, Wilhelm didn't start regular employment until 1814, when he obtained a position as secretary at a royal library in Kassel, Germany. Jacob Grimm would join him there in 1816.

'Grimms' Fairy Tales'

Influenced by German Romanticism, a prevailing movement of the time, the brothers robustly studied the folklore of their region, with an emphasis on recording village oral storytelling that was vanishing with the advent of new technology. Jacob's and Wilhelm's work culminated in the book Kinder-und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales), the first volume of which was published in 1812. A second volume followed in 1815. The collection would later come to be known as Grimms' Fairy Tales, with famous stories that include Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, The Golden Goose, Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella.

Despite the emphasis on village oral traditions, the stories were in fact an amalgamation of oral and previously printed fairy tales, as well as information shared by friends, family members and acquaintances, with non-German influences. For instance, French writer Charles Perrault had earlier written a version of The Sleeping Beauty, known as Briar Rose in the Grimm collection.

The brothers aimed to make the collection more palatable to children by its second edition, and hence made note that they had altered and expanded the language of the stories. Wilhelm, seen as the more easygoing of the two with a passion for the arts, served as editor on future editions of Tales.

Marriage and Later Years

While Jacob remained single, in the mid-1820s, Wilhelm married Dortchen Wild, with whom he would have four children.

By 1830, the brothers had taken on work at the University of Göttingen, with Wilhelm becoming an assistant librarian. The two left the university in the mid-1830s—the result of being banished by the king of Hanover after they protested changes he'd made to the region's constitution.

In 1840, the brothers decided to settle in Berlin, Germany, where they became members of the Royal Academy of Science and lectured at university. They subsequently took on a massive project—a comprehensive dictionary of the German language.