New German Fairy Tale Book

Ludwig Bechstein (1801-1860) was a German writer and collector of fairy tales. He worked for Duke Bernhard II of Sachsen-Meiningen as a librarian, a position he used toward his own literary interests. He published epic poems and legends, and in 1845 he published the German Fairy Tale Book, and in 1856 the New German Fairy Tale Book, which subsequently became more popular in Germany than the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale collection, even though several of his tales were versions of theirs. Unlike the Brothers Grimm, Bechstein did not go into the field to collect tales directly from folk, but rather he collected from literary sources, whether they be from books or medieval poems.