Household Tales

Household Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is a collection of over 200 children's fairy tales. The book includes many favourites, including The Frog King, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, and, Rumpelstiltskin, collected by two of the most famous story-tellers in history. The first edition of the book contained 86 stories, but by the time this, the seventh edition came out, that had increased to 210. There were additional changes to the different editions, such as making the wicked mother in Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel, into a wicked stepmother, as well as the removal of some mild sexual references (such as Rapunzel innocently asking why her dress was getting tight around her belly). However, the violence in the stories not only remained, but actually increased, particularly when it came to villains getting punished.
The collection influenced many other writers to collect tales from their countries, such as the Russian Alexander Afanasyev, the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, the English Joseph Jacobs, and Jeremiah Curtin, an American who collected Irish tales. Part of the Harvard Classics set.