Grimms' Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm, Brothers Grimm, George Cruikshank, Wilhelm Carl Grimm, Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm

From the Publisher

Grimms' Fairy Tales is a charming new edition of one of the best-known collections of children's stories of all times. Peter Carter brings a novelist's flair for narrative pace and vivid imagery to these familiar tales while remaining faithful to the spirit and tone of the original orally transmitted stories. The authentic rhythm of spoken English is captured in Carter's clear and resonant style.

All the favorite characters are here—Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood—along with others less well-known in gripping tales such as The Singing Bone and The Carrion Crows. Haunting and powerful, sad and humorous, these stories remain as fresh and fascinating as the first day they were told.

Publishers Weekly

Old-fashioned, often broken typeface and Arthur Rackham's gloriously reproduced original artwork accompany 22 stories in a new edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, originally published in 1909. A sepia-toned illustration for "Red Riding Hood" shows the cloaked girl meeting the bristly wolf, dwarfed by endlessly tall, bare trees. A caption in "The Bremen Town Musicians" recalls the bygone era: "They came upon a Cat, sitting in the road, with a face as long as a wet week." ( Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Old-fashioned, often broken typeface and Arthur Rackham's gloriously reproduced original artwork accompany 22 stories in a new edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, originally published in 1909. A sepia-toned illustration for "Red Riding Hood" shows the cloaked girl meeting the bristly wolf, dwarfed by endlessly tall, bare trees. A caption in "The Bremen Town Musicians" recalls the bygone era: "They came upon a Cat, sitting in the road, with a face as long as a wet week." ( Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Children's Literature

From the lovely Ashenputtel (Cinderella) on the cover to the innocent faces of Hansel and Gretel, it is hard to resist this new edition of twenty-two of the best known Grimm's fairy tales combined with twenty-one of Arthur Rachkham's magnificent color plates and twenty-eight of his marvelous pen-and-ink drawings. As Peter Glassman writes in an Afterward, this edition, based on the rare and unwieldy 1909 edition, seems to contain the best of the writers and the artist in one volume. From the Witch climbing up Rapunsel's very long hair to the homely, beloved Seven Dwarfs attending to beautiful Snowdrop, children and parents will relish Arthur Rackham's portrayals as they read and listen to the enduring tales. Even the cat in "The Bremen Town Musicians" truly has "a face as long as a wet week." The choice of font, with its antique look, may present more of a challenge than today's readers are accustomed to, but it blends well with the enchanting art. Glassman also provides a nice summary of the lives of the brother's Grimm and Arthur Rackham, whose art is as evocative as it no doubt was almost 100 years ago. A Peter Glassman book that is a wonderful addition to all library collections. 2001 (orig. 1909), SeaStar/North-South Books, $19.95. Ages All. Reviewer: Elaine Wick

Library Journal

Is this new edition necessary? Only scholars are likely to persevere through all 32 of the ``previously untranslated'' tales found among the 242 entries. A few, rejected by the Grimms as too French or too literary, have merit; most of the others are slight variants of tales already in the canon or are fragments. There is no analysis or commentary of any individual tales, and though Zipes offers a fine introduction, he himself acknowledges the excellence of Ralph Manheim's translation of the canon (misspelling his name). Since Manheim's work is still in print and available at low cost in paper (Doubleday, 1977), only wealthy scholars, who will appreciate the identification of each tale's human or published source and date of first publication, might insist on Zipes. Patricia Dooley, formerly with English Dept., Drexel Univ., Philadelphia

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