Wilhelm Grimm

Grimm, Wilhelm (Hanau, 1786-1859, Berlin), was the younger brother of Jacob Grimm and his closest collaborator. He studied with his brother at Marburg University, was in library administration with him at Kassel, and was elected simultaneously with Jacob to a chair at Göttingen; both brothers were among the professors dismissed in 1837 for their political stand (see Göttinger Sieben). Together the two brothers were summoned to Berlin as members of the Prussian Akademie der Wissenschaften in 1841, and indeed the main outlines of their lives differ only in their dates of birth and death. If Jacob was the scholar of genius, Wilhelm was the more poetically gifted and had the greater hand in the story-telling of the fairy-tales ( Kinder- und Hausmärchen, 2 vols., 1812-14). He also collaborated in Deutsche Sagen (2 vols., 1816-18), in the periodical Altdeutsche Wälder (1813-16) and, until his death, in the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch (1852-1960). He wrote Die deutsche Heldensage (1829) and published a number of medieval works, including Graf Rudolf (1828), Freidank's Bescheidenheit (1834), the Rolandslied (1838), Konrad von Würzburg's Goldene Schmiede (1836), and Silvester (1841). A complete edition of the writings of J. and W. Grimm (62 vols.) began to appear in 1974.