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FREE Copy of an Annotated & Unabridged Grimms’ Fairy Tales Ebook

Are you looking for a free ebook of the classic Grimms’ Fairy Tales collection? You have come to the right place!

I have an unabridged version of Grimms’ Fairy Tales in both PDF and Epub format. You can download the PDF by clicking this link. You can also get a free version of the kindle Epub on my Gumroad page. Donations on Gumroad are appreciated but certainly not mandatory.

Get the Kindle Version on Gumroad!

Is This Version of The Brothers’ Grimm Uncensored, Unchanged and Unabridged?

I have not removed any of the content from the original texts. The stories are translated into English, but are otherwise the original, uncensored stories.

What IS unique about these books? I have made some annotations to the texts. I have a brief summary of each story at the beginning, as well as a Foreward with some literary analysis.

Foreward from the Book

I have decided to include the foreward in this post. Here it is:

This book is one of the original collections of folktales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The stories were published nearly 200 years ago but are still among today’s most popular children’s stories. 

The Brothers Grimm didn’t initially write these stories for children. Some of these tales are pretty dark and have been sanitized over the years to be more palatable to new generations. I initially considered tweaking the stories as well but decided to provide the original, unaltered versions instead. Some stories may be disturbing but communicate important lessons that more modern variants lack.   

These fairytales have two purposes. The first is to entertain the reader. Children and adults can enjoy the creative yet strange stories the Brothers Grimm collected over the years. However, the stories serve a more important purpose: teaching some important life lessons.

As fairytales were retold and rewritten over the years, some important messages were lost. Modern fairytales have become synonymous with happy endings. The original stories by the Brothers Grimm weren’t always so wholesome, but they helped get some important messages across. Some of the following lessons can be gleaned from the original fairytales include: 

  • The most consistent theme throughout the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm is the importance of showing kindness and refraining from cruelty. The wicked get their just deserves, and those with a pure heart are rewarded. These lessons don’t always hold in real life since hateful people often get away with their evil deeds. However, the lessons are still valid since they emphasize the importance of doing right. Also, although kindness doesn’t always pay off, it usually does, so the tales don’t really miss the mark. The Grimm version of Cinderella illustrates this lesson in a way that the version of the story by Charles Perrault does not. The story told by the Brothers Grimm doesn’t involve a fairy godmother. Instead, the young servant girl gets aid from a bird drawn to a tree that Cinderella helped grow. Her love for the tree helped pave the road for her happy ending.           
  • Many of these stories also have crucial lessons about being wary of strangers. Little Red Riding Hood and Hanzel and Gretel are two of the most famous examples. These stories serve as lessons about the dangers of the world. Little Red Riding Hood was written to warn women about being cautious around strange men, especially at a time when they had few legal recourses.
  • The story “Cat and Mouse in Partnership” starts as a seemingly lovely tale of two animals beating the odds and becoming good friends. Sadly, the story turns dark when the cat devours his “friend.” The ending may be depressing, but anybody that has been betrayed by a friend or lover can relate. The lesson appears to be that you have to choose your friends wisely. Some people can’t fight their true nature and may betray you in the end.
  • While some of the stories have superficial undertones where the beautiful characters are also the most intelligent and purest of heart, this theme is certainly not universal. Some of the tales, including “The Golden Bird” and “The Frog-Prince,” depict characters that are more than what they seem. Readers can appreciate the importance of reserving judgment rather than making assumptions based on first appearances.

These lessons are undoubtedly valuable in real-world settings. However, they fall short in some ways. Although these tales are very dark in some respects, they tend to have unrealistically happy endings.

A common theme involves commoners marrying princes and princesses, which is far from a realistic outcome for most struggling people. In some stories, the happy ending doesn’t seem remotely plausible. The story of Hansel and Gretel is a prime example. After defeating the evil witch, the children discover priceless pearls and precious stones. This ending doesn’t seem possible since the evil witch had no incentive to own these gems unless they were materials for her sorcery. Nonetheless, the end is still satisfying, so one can’t fault the authors for giving the readers the outcome they desire. The children had just been through a traumatic ordeal and deserved compensation for their toils.

Some stories also have outdated lessons that might be inappropriate for modern society. For example, some of the themes show a prejudicial attitude about stepfamilies. They also push the narrative that justice must be solely about punishment with little room for forgiveness or a chance for rehabilitation.

In other respects, the stories give mixed messages on specific social issues. The stories tend to conform to the chauvinistic gender norms of their time. However, they are arguably progressive in other ways. Some of the stories (including The Seven Ravens, Hansel and Gretel, and Fundevogel) center around female protagonists saving their brothers or male lovers, rather than always being the damsels in distress. The female protagonists in Cat-Skin and Clever Gretel are not as altruistic but show admirable resilience and cleverness to improve their lives without waiting for a savior.

The morals of these fairytales can be invaluable but should also be taken with a grain of salt. Readers can use discretion about which lessons to clean and which to overlook.

Without further ado, here are the original, uncensored stories by the Brothers Grimm. I hope you enjoy them!

List of Stories in Grimms’ Fairy Tales Book

Here is a summary of the stories included in this book:

Foreword

  1. THE GOLDEN BIRD
  2. HANS IN LUCK
  3. JORINDA AND JORINDEL
  4. THE TRAVELLING MUSICIANS
  5. OLD SULTAN
  6. THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN
  7. SLEEPING BEAUTY (ORIGINALLY TITLED BRIAR ROSE)
  8. THE DOG AND THE SPARROW
  9. THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES
  10. THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE
  11. THE WILLOW-WREN AND THE BEAR
  12. THE FROG-PRINCE
  13. CAT AND MOUSE IN PARTNERSHIP
  14. THE GOOSE-GIRL
  15. THE ADVENTURES OF CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET
  16. RAPUNZEL
  17. FUNDEVOGEL
  18. THE VALIANT LITTLE TAILOR
  19. HANSEL AND GRETEL
  20. THE MOUSE, THE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE
  21. MOTHER HOLLE
  22. LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (ORIGINALLY TITLED LITTLE RED-CAP)
  23. THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM
  24. TOM THUMB
  25. RUMPELSTILTSKIN
  26. CLEVER GRETEL
  27. THE OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON
  28. THE LITTLE PEASANT
  29. FREDERICK AND CATHERINE
  30. SWEETHEART ROLAND
  31. SNOW WHITE (ORIGINALLY TITLED SNOWDROP)
  32. THE CARNATION (ORIGINALLY TITLED THE PINK)
  33. CLEVER ELSIE
  34. THE MISER IN THE BUSH
  35. CINDERELLA (ORIGINALLY TITLED ASHPUTTEL)
  36. THE WHITE SNAKE
  37. THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE KIDS
  38. THE QUEEN BEE
  39. THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER
  40. THE JUNIPER-TREE
  41. THE TURNIP
  42. CLEVER HANS
  43. THE THREE LANGUAGES
  44. THE FOX AND THE CAT
  45. THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS
  46. LILY AND THE LION
  47. THE FOX AND THE HORSE
  48. THE BLUE LIGHT
  49. THE RAVEN
  50. THE GOLDEN GOOSE
  51. THE WATER OF LIFE
  52. THE TWELVE HUNTSMEN
  53. THE KING OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN
  54. DOCTOR KNOWALL
  55. THE SEVEN RAVENS
  56. THE WEDDING OF MRS FOX
  57. THE SALAD
  58. THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS
  59. KING GRISLY-BEARD
  60. IRON HANS
  61. CAT-SKIN
  62. SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED

History of the Authors

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (famously called The Brothers Grimm), were a pair of storytellers from Germany. They worked in a library and were interested in studying old languages. In the 1800s, they collected stories told in different parts of the country and put them in books. The Brothers Grimm didn’t write the stories they are known for. The stories were part of an oral tradition in Germany, passed down for generations.

Their most famous books were Kinder- und Hausmärchen. The Kinder- und Hausmärchen was followed by Deutsche Sagen, a collection of historical and local legends of Germany. However, it did not gain wide popular appeal, although it did have an influence on literature and the study of folk narrative. In 1826, the brothers translated Thomas Crofton Croker’s Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, and included their own lengthy introduction on fairy lore. They also focused on ancient texts from various languages, publishing new editions. Wilhelm’s notable contribution was Die deutsche Heldensage, a collection of themes and names from heroic legends mentioned in literature and art from the 6th to the 16th centuries, along with essays on the art of the saga.