The original 1812 text. Newly translated. Complete and uncensored.
From the first printing
Translated from the 1812 and 1815 volumes themselves, not from the 1857 rewrite every other Grimm book is built on.
Nothing cut, nothing softened
The mother stays the mother. The blood stays in the shoe. Every tale, in the order the brothers printed it.
32 erased tales, restored
Tales the Grimms dropped from later editions and most readers have never seen, back in their original places.
The version you were told. And the one they printed first.
The Grimms revised their tales through seven editions. What everyone knows comes from the last one, 1857. Six examples of what the first one says.
Snow White
1857 A wicked stepmother sends a huntsman after her.
1812 Her own mother orders him to bring back her lungs and liver.
Hansel and Gretel
1857 A stepmother talks the father into abandoning them.
1812 Their mother walks them into the forest to die.
Rapunzel
1857 The witch finds out when Rapunzel lets it slip.
1812 The fairy finds out when Rapunzel's dress stops fitting around her belly.
Cinderella
1857 The slipper fits Cinderella and no one else.
1812 One sister cuts off her toe, the other her heel. The blood in the stocking gives them away.
Rumpelstiltskin
1857 He stamps so hard he tears himself in two.
1812 He flies out of the window on a cooking spoon.
The Frog King
1857 A kiss breaks the spell.
1812 The princess throws the frog against the wall as hard as she can.
156 tales.
32 of them the Grimms later erased.
Every tale from both volumes, in the order the brothers first printed them. The ones in red were dropped from later editions and have been out of most people's reach for two hundred years. The marked ones face a woodcut plate.
Red removed after 1815 · ◆ illustrated
Volume one · 1812
- 1The Frog King, or Iron Henry◆
- 2Cat and Mouse in Partnership
- 3Mary’s Child
- 4A Good Game of Skittles and Cards
- 5The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids
- 6Of the Nightingale and the Blindworm
- 7Of the Stolen Heller
- 8The Hand with the Knife
- 9The Twelve Brothers
- 10The Riffraff
- 11Little Brother and Little Sister
- 12Rapunzel◆
- 13The Three Little Men in the Forest
- 14Of the Wicked Flax-Spinning
- 15Hansel and Gretel◆
- 16Mister Quick and Ready
- 17The White Snake
- 18Straw, Coal, and Bean on a Journey
- 19Of the Fisherman and His Wife
- 20Of a Brave Tailor
- 21Cinderella◆
- 22How Children Played Butcher◆
- 23The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage
- 24Frau Holle
- 25The Three Ravens
- 26Little Red Cap
- 27Death and the Gooseherd
- 28The Singing Bone◆
- 29The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs
- 30Little Louse and Little Flea
- 31The Girl Without Hands◆
- 32Clever Hans
- 33Puss in Boots
- 34Hans’s Trine
- 35The Sparrow and His Four Children
- 36The Little Table Set Yourself, the Gold Donkey, and the Cudgel in the Sack
- 37The Napkin, the Knapsack, the Little Cannon Hat, and the Horn
- 38The Wedding of Mrs. Fox
- 39The Elves
- 40The Robber Bridegroom◆
- 41Herr Korbes
- 42The Godfather
- 43The Strange Feast
- 44Godfather Death
- 45The Travels of the Tailor’s Thumbling
- 46Fitcher’s Bird◆
- 47The Juniper Tree◆
- 48Old Sultan
- 49The Six Swans
- 50Brier Rose
- 51Foundling-Bird
- 52King Thrushbeard
- 53Snow White◆
- 54Hans Dumm
- 55Rumpelstiltskin◆
- 56Sweetheart Roland
- 57The Golden Bird
- 58The Faithful Godfather Sparrow
- 59Prince Swan
- 60The Golden Egg
- 61The Tailor Who Soon Grew Rich
- 62Bluebeard◆
- 63The Gold Children
- 64Of the Simpleton
- 65All-Kinds-of-Fur
- 66Hurleburlebutz
- 67The King with the Lion
- 68Of the Summer and Winter Garden
- 69Jorinde and Joringel
- 70The Okerlo
- 71Princess Mouse-Skin
- 72The Little Pear Will Not Fall
- 73The Murder Castle
- 74Of Johannes Water-Spring and Caspar Water-Spring
- 75The Phoenix Bird
- 76The Carnation
- 77Of the Joiner and the Turner
- 78The Old Grandfather and the Grandson
- 79The Water Nixie
- 80Of the Death of the Little Hen
- 81The Smith and the Devil
- 82The Three Sisters
- 83The Poor Girl
- 84The Mother-in-Law
- 85Fragments
Volume two · 1815
- 1The Poor Man and the Rich Man
- 2The Singing, Springing Lark
- 3The Goose Girl◆
- 4Of a Young Giant
- 5The Little Earth Man
- 6The King of the Golden Mountain
- 7The Raven
- 8The Clever Farmer’s Daughter
- 9The Spirit in the Glass
- 10The Three Little Birds
- 11The Water of Life
- 12Doctor Know-It-All
- 13The Frog Prince
- 14The Devil’s Sooty Brother
- 15The Devil Greencoat
- 16The Wren and the Bear
- 17The Sweet Porridge
- 18The Faithful Animals
- 19Tales of the Toad
- 20The Poor Miller’s Boy and the Little Cat
- 21The Crows
- 22Hans My Hedgehog
- 23The Little Shroud
- 24The Jew in the Thornbush
- 25The Skilled Huntsman
- 26The Flail from Heaven
- 27The Two King’s Children
- 28The Clever Little Tailor
- 29The Bright Sun Brings It to Light
- 30The Blue Light
- 31The Willful Child
- 32The Three Army Surgeons
- 33The Lazy One and the Diligent One
- 34The Three Journeymen
- 35The Heavenly Wedding
- 36The Long Nose
- 37The Old Woman in the Forest
- 38The Three Brothers
- 39The Devil and His Grandmother
- 40Ferdinand the Faithful and Ferdinand the Unfaithful
- 41The Iron Stove
- 42The Lazy Spinner
- 43The Lion and the Frog
- 44The Soldier and the Joiner
- 45Fair Katrinelje and Pif Paf Poltrie
- 46The Fox and the Horse
- 47The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes
- 48The Six Servants
- 49The White Bride and the Black Bride
- 50The Wild Man
- 51The Three Black Princesses
- 52Knoist and His Three Sons
- 53The Girl from Brakel
- 54The Household Servants
- 55The Little Lamb and the Little Fish
- 56Simeli Mountain
- 57The Children in Famine
- 58The Little Donkey
- 59The Ungrateful Son
- 60The Turnip
- 61The Little Man Made Young by Fire
- 62The Lord’s Animals and the Devil’s
- 63The Cock’s Beam
- 64The Old Beggar Woman
- 65The Three Lazy Ones
- 66The Holy Woman Kummernis
- 67The Tale of the Land of Cockaigne
- 68The Ditmarsh Tale of Lies
- 69Riddle Tale
- 70The Golden Key
Read a page
Snow White
Tale 53, 1812. The opening, exactly as the Grimms first printed it.
Once upon a time, in the middle of winter, when the snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky, a beautiful queen sat at a window that had a frame of black ebony, and sewed. And as she was sewing like that and looked up at the snow, she pricked her finger with the needle, and three drops of blood fell into the snow. And because the red looked so beautiful in the white, she thought: if only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood and as black as this frame. And soon after she had a little daughter, as white as the snow, as red as the blood, and as black as ebony, and that is why she was called Snow White.
The queen was the most beautiful in the whole land, and very proud of her beauty. She also had a mirror, before which she stepped every morning and asked:
Continued in the book, along with 154 more.
Book details
- Binding
- Case-bound hardcover, matte laminate
- Size
- 6 × 9 in (152 × 229 mm), 357 pages
- Paper
- 60 lb cream book stock
- Illustrations
- Frontispiece and 14 full-page woodcut plates
- Text
- New English translation of Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, vol. 1 (1812) and vol. 2 (1815)
- Publisher
- Wolfsmund Lane Press, 2026
Questions
- When will it arrive?
- Your copy is bound within one business day and ships from the USA. Most orders arrive in 7 to 12 business days. You get tracking the day it ships.
- What is the free digital edition?
- The complete book as a PDF, page for page the same as the hardcover, plates included. It unlocks on your confirmation page the moment payment completes, so you can start reading tonight.
- How is this different from other Grimm books?
- Nearly every Grimm collection in print follows the 1857 seventh edition, which the brothers rewrote for children over 45 years. This is the 1812 and 1815 first edition, complete, translated directly from the German, including every tale they later removed.
- Is it for children?
- It was collected for households, not nurseries. It contains violence and cruelty, and one antisemitic tale kept unaltered for completeness. Read it before you hand it on.
Own the edition they didn't want you to read.
The complete 1812 first edition, illustrated, in hardcover. Your digital copy is free and instant.
The complete digital edition, free with the hardcover
All 357 pages as a PDF, plates included. Unlocked the second your order goes through, so you're reading tonight. A $19.95 edition, on us.
- Ships from the USA · $6.95 flat · 7 to 12 business days
- Secure checkout by Stripe · Apple Pay · Google Pay · all major cards