Grimm Brothers

12mo (191 x 113mm.), 2 volumes, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE (volume 1 with no umlaut over the "a" in the word Marchen on the engraved title, the second story titled "The Travelling Musicians" and a list of the plates on p.218), WITH 20 PLATES AND ENGRAVED TITLES BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK printed in brown (volume 1) and black (volume 2), volume 1 in original pictorial tan boards, volume 2 in green cloth-backed boards with printed label, half-titles, 12pp. of adverts (with notice reading "On the First of November...") at end of volume 1 and single page at end of volume 2, red morocco pull-off case, a few marginal tears and minor losses, not affecting text, plates lightly offset, vol. 1 recased with some professional repairs and restoration including new endpapers, boards and label of vol. 2 rubbed and worn at edges, upper interior joint split, some pages soiled and browned, lacking 12pp. adverts at front (2)

Volume 2 with ownership inscription of A. Thomas; both volumes with bookplates of Reuben Jay Flick and Robert Norton Ganz; sale at Christie's New York, 10 December 1999, lot 151

Cohn (1924) 369

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, translated by Edgar Taylor, a prosperous lawyer and writer. Together with his friend, David Jardine, a native German speaker, he selected a number of the collection of over 150 stories which had been first published in by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm between 1812 and 1815. Cruikshank, who had just begun to focus on illustrations after several years as a caricaturist, contributed the etchings which make this the first illustrated version of Grimm's "household tales", and subsequently set the pattern for future appearances of fairy tales.

The book was an immediate success and did much to make such stories acceptable as reading material for children, thanks in part to Taylor's sensitive omission and alterations to certain more gruesome episodes in the original German. Copies of this first state in the original bindings are rare.