A New Era of Stories
Giving up on their career in law the Grim brothers began pursuing literary research. Although this was a completely different field from their political experience they still approached literature from a thinking of social change. They were unable to relate to the current Romantics of their time and sought out methods of the past and different cultures. They looked towards other cultures traditions from Spain, to Scotland, to Finland, to Serbia, and Scandinavia. They started with folk songs and tales and started to feel the difference in folk literature and poetry was the realism of the human state. They wanted to see fears, and hopes expressed in their writing. On December 20th, 1812 The Grimm brothers published a series of tales called Kinder- und Hausmärchen (House-march-en) which translates to Children's and Household tales, later coined "Grimm's Fairytales". A catalog of oral stories passed through generations based on peoples cultural beliefs.
Kinder- und Hausmärchen remains the earliest collection of folktales and gave us classics such as: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves, Rumplestilskin, Beauty and The Beast, The Tortoise and The Hare, etc.