The Brothers Grimm: A Biography

Drawing on deep archival research and decades of scholarship, Ann Schmiesing tells the affecting story of how the Grimms’ ambitious projects gave the brothers a sense of self-preservation through the atrocities of the Napoleonic Wars and a series of personal losses.

They produced a vast corpus of work on mythology and medieval literature, embarked on a monumental German dictionary project, and broke scholarly ground with Jacob’s linguistic discovery known as Grimm’s Law. Setting their story against a rich historical backdrop, Schmiesing offers a fresh consideration of the profound and yet complicated legacy of the Brothers Grimm.