The World of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and Their Fairy Tales

1785	Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm is born on January 4 in Hanau, in what is now Germany, to Philipp Wilhelm and Doro thea (neée Zimmer) Grimm. He is the second of their chil dren; Friedrich Hermann Georg, born in 1783, died in infancy.
1786	Wilhelm Carl Grimm is born on February 24 in Hanau.
1787	Philipp and Dorothea Grimm’s fourth son, Carl Friedrich, is born. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni appears.
1788	A fifth Grimm son, Ferdinand Philipp, is born. The U.S. Constitution is ratified.
1789	The French Revolution begins. English Romantic poet and artist William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, writ ten from a child’s point of view.
1790	Ludwig Emil, sixth child of Philipp and Dorothea Grimm, is born. Ludwig will become an artist and an illustrator of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
1791	The Grimm family moves to Steinau, Germany, where Phi lipp becomes a district judge. The Grimms prosper in Stei nau; Philipp provides his family with a large house and domestic servants. Another son, Friedrich, is born but dies in infancy. Jacob and Wilhelm are schooled in the strict Reform Calvinist Church. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a leading figure of the German Romantic movement, be comes director of the Weimar Court Theater. In the United States, the Bill of Rights is passed.
1792	In England, Mary Wollstonecraft publishes Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the first major feminist document.
1793	The Grimms’ only daughter, Charlotte (“Lotte”) Amalie, is born. France’s King Louis XVI is executed.
1794	Another son, Georg Edward, is born to the Grimms but dies in infancy.
1796	Philipp Wilhelm Grimm dies on January 10, leaving his wife and six children. Jacob, the eldest surviving child, is just eleven.
1798	Through the influence of Harriet Zimmer, sister of Do rothea Grimm and lady-in-waiting to the princess of Hessia-Kassel, Jacob and Wilhelm begin secondary school at the prestigious Lyzeum in Kassel. The brothers dedicate themselves to their schoolwork; each graduates at the top of his class. In England, William Wordsworth’s collection of poems Lyrical Ballads, a central work in the Romantic movement, is published.
1799	Italian physicist Alessandro Volta produces the first bat tery as a source of electricity.
1800	German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schel ling publishes his System des transzendentalen Idealismus (System of Transcendental Idealism), while Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), a novelist and prominent poet, puts out Hymnen an die Nacht (Hymns to the Night); both publications are major works of German Romanticism. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whose philosophy has a profound impact on the German Romantic movement, publishes Bestimmung des Menschen (The Vocation of Man). In the United States, the Li brary of Congress is established.
1801	Novalis dies. German philosopher Georg Friedrich Wil helm Hegel and Schelling edit the Kritisches Journal der Philosophie (Critical Journal of Philosophy).
1802	Jacob Grimm enters the aristocratic University of Marburg with the intention of studying law.
1803	Wilhelm follows his brother to Marburg, where he too studies law. While at the university, Jacob and Wilhelm come under the influence of Professor Friedrich Karl von Savigny, the founder of historical jurisprudence. Von Sa vigny teaches that laws are correctly interpreted by tracing their historical and cultural origins. The brothers adapt his methods to the study of linguistics and philology. American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark begin their expedition from the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Coast.
1805	German Romantic writers Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim publish Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic
	Horn), a collection of folk songs. Jacob spends time in Paris with Professor von Savigny. Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott’s epic, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, is published.
1806	Prussia declares war on France. Jacob leaves the university to help support his family in Kassel. He takes a post as secretary for the Kassel War Commission while continuing his studies on the side. Inspired by the work of their friend Clemens Brentano, the brothers begin to collect folktales (in German, Märchen). Napoleéon I’s armies oc cupy Kassel and take Berlin. The Holy Roman Empire ends. American philologist and lexicographer Noah Web ster publishes his first dictionary; it is followed in 1812 by his finest work, The American Dictionary of the English Lan guage, containing some 70,000 words.
1807	Jacob loses his post in the war commission when Kassel becomes part of the kingdom of Westphalia under the authority of Napoleéon I’s younger brother, Jeéroôme Bon aparte. Hegel publishes Phänomenologie des Geistes (The Phenomenology of Spirit), an important work of the German Romantic movement.
1808	Dorothea Grimm dies on May 27, leaving Jacob to care for the family. Although opposed to French rule, Jacob takes a post as royal librarian to Jeéroôme Bonaparte. This position allows him time to pursue his scholarly interests as well as to support his siblings financially. Goethe’s Faust, Part I is published. Ludwig von Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is per formed for the first time on December 22.
1811	Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is published.
1812	The first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Stories), volume 1, is published; it comprises eighty-six tales gleaned from oral tradition. In England, George Gordon, Lord Byron, publishes the first two can tos of his narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The United States declares war on Great Britain; the war ends in 1815.
1813	The French withdraw from Kassel, and Napoleéon’s armies are defeated throughout Europe. Jacob Grimm is named to the Hessian peace delegation and goes to France and Vienna on diplomatic missions. When he returns from his professional travels, Jacob sees that political factions al ready undermine his hopes for a unified Germany. Wil helm becomes secretary to the royal librarian in Kassel.
	The brothers publish the first of their three-volume col lection of writings on folklore, linguistics, and medieval studies, Altdeutsche Wälder (Old German Forests). In England, Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice.
1814	Friedrich Karl von Savigny publishes Vom Beruf unsrer Zeit für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft (The Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence).
1815	The second volume of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Stories) is published, comprising seventy ad ditional tales. The Grimm brothers publish Der arme Heinrich von Harmann von der Aue (Poor Heinrich by Harmann von der Aue), a medieval epic, with their scholarly com mentary; Lieder der alten Edda (Lays from the Elder Edda), a compilation/study of Teutonic folk stories; and volume 2 of Altdeutsche Wälder (Old German Forests). Von Savigny pub lishes the first of his six-volume Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter (History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages).
1816	Jacob is granted a position as second librarian in Kassel. The Grimms publish volume 3 of Altdeutsche Wälder and the two-volume Deutsche Sagen (German Legends).
1818	Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is first published in En gland in 1818.
1819	Jacob publishes the first volume of Deutsche Grammatik (German Grammar), a linguistic study considered the foun dation of German philology; the subsequent three vol umes are published in 1826, 1831, and 1837. Wilhelm takes on primary responsibility for editing future editions of Children’s and Household Stories. Both brothers are awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Mar burg. English poet John Keats publishes “Ode on a Gre cian Urn.”
1820	Sir Walter Scott’s historical romance Ivanhoe is published.
1824	Russian poet, playwright, and novelist Alexsandr Pushkin writes the historical tragedy Boris Godunov.
1825	Wilhelm Grimm marries Henriette Dorothea Wild, a ma jor contributor to the brothers’ collection of folktales; the couple has been acquainted for more than twenty years.
1826	The brothers publish Irische Elfenmärchen (Irish Fairy Tales), a translation, with an introductory essay by the Grimms, of Thomas Crofton Croker’s Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1825).
1829	When Jacob is overlooked for an expected promotion, the siblings resign their posts in protest and move to Goöttin gen, where they work as professors of German literature at the university.
1831	Goethe completes Faust, Part II; he dies the following year in Weimar.
1835	Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen publishes his first collection of fairy tales.
1836	In the United States, Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his essay “Nature,” a major work of Transcendentalist philos ophy.
1837	Ernst August (Ernest Augustus) II is crowned king and suspends the constitution of the German state of Hano ver, dissolves the parliament, and requires an oath of al legiance from all civil servants. The Grimm brothers join in protest against the absolutist monarchy and are dis missed from their university positions. In financial diffi culty, they begin work on the Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary), a lexicographical history of the German lan guage. In England, Queen Victoria is crowned; Charles Dickens publishes Pickwick Papers. American Samuel Morse invents the telegraph.
1840	Through the influence of friends the Grimms receive pro fessorships at the University of Berlin, where they con tinue their work on the German Dictionary and other works in philology, linguistics, and German literature.
1843	Dickens publishes A Christmas Carol and Martin Chuzzlewit.
1845	In the United States, Edgar Allan Poe publishes “The Raven.”
1847	In England, Charlotte Bronteö’s novel Jane Eyre is pub lished, as are works by her two sisters, Emily (Wuthering Heights) and Anne (Agnes Grey).
1848	After the German revolution, the Grimm brothers are elected to the civil parliament and attend the National Assembly as representatives. The revolutionary movement is short-lived; the brothers leave politics disappointed. Ja cob publishes the important two-volume philological study Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (History of the German Language) and retires from teaching to do research. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish Das Kommunistische Manifest (The Communist Manifesto).
1851	American writer Herman Melville publishes Moby-Dick, or The Whale.
1852	Wilhelm Grimm retires from his university post. In their final years the brothers devote their energies to complet ing the German Dictionary. Unfortunately, the undertaking is too grand even for the Grimms; they die before reach ing the letter G; twentieth-century scholars will complete the dictionary. British polymath Peter Mark Roget pub lishes the first edition of his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases.
1855	American teacher Thomas Bulfinch publishes The Age of Fable, an introduction to Greek, Roman, Celtic, and Scan dinavian mythology.
1858	Work begins on the Oxford English Dictionary.
1859	Wilhelm Grimm dies on December 16. Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution by natural selection.
1863	Jacob Grimm dies on September 20. In the United States, President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Ad dress.