Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales (Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics)

Fairy Tales: Uncensored.

When I first bought this book, I thought that it was a mistake, mainly because I thought the stories were rather dull with a "happily ever after" ending. I was proven wrong after the first story I read. The Grimm's Fairy Tales are MUCH more gruesome and chilling, that they gave me a sense of reality. This collection is far from a terrible read. Once you begin the first story, you won't ever be able to put it down!

24 out of 26 people found this review helpful.

Classic for the family

These stories are the originals. I share them with my eight year old daughter and we compare them to the stories rewritten for this day and age. It is nice that I can teach her about life in ancient times and why some stories were written the way they were. God and devotions to God remain in tact, but not in a way that preaches. It allows to expand on the way people thought so long ago, because many of us know public schools omitt God, and pious natures of books. Also the stories are more like a teaching fable rather as compared to today's fairy tales.

As my children learn how to read well in school, I use these classics to expand their minds, getting them ready to use classics, such as the short stories in this book, as a way to compare ideals of the past with ideals of the present for their future college endeavors.

The cover is greatly detailed, drawing attention of children and adults of many ages. This is a book that can be a family heirloom as it shared with children, and grandchildren. Not only that it makes a great display piece to sit on top of book shelf, in a childs room, or placed near a fireplace.

The price alone is worth the money for a soft covered book with these classics, and yet this a nice hardcover made to last for generations of readers. This is a bargain of the decade.

19 out of 26 people found this review helpful.

So many stories, such a beautiful cover!

The book opens with a brief history of the Brothers Grimm which helps the reader appreciate the origin of these stories and the struggles the brothers went through. It has been so fun to read through the stories in their 'original' form. I can't wait for my daughter to get a little older so I can read them to her.

7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

On Grimm, and Leather-bounds

The Grimm Brothers, while being no strangers to modern people, have often been crushed and forgotten as those people whose tales were converted to the much beloved animated movies by Walt Disney throughout the twentieth century. And despite the few who know the importance of the existence of their works, are largely labeled as thieves, due to their plagiarism of folklore around Germany. This rather dogmatic viewpoint is brought on by those who refute childhood, and those whose smugness resorts from following the trends of such pedantic prudes.

On the other hand, of course is this wonderful leather-bound edition as published by Barnes & Noble. Their is no doubt in my mind that this edition is beautiful, it does however have a multitude of flaws which severely limits the lifespan of this edition. The full color pages, while delightfully pretty, are insufferably weak, as I have been able to-quite accidentally-cut a page using only the marker-ribbon.

Ultimately, I adore this product, and only wish for the color pages to be more durable than what they currently are.

5 out of 8 people found this review helpful.

Nice keepsake book

This collection of Grimm's fairy tales is nicely bound for gift giving at a reasonable price.

4 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

Great Fairy Tales

I loved this book growing up and now that I have my own kid I read this book to her. My child is only a couple months old but she loves being read to. I can't wait until she's older and understands what I am reading her.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Not every tale is exactly sweet & dandy...

Let’s be real, this book will take forever to finish. Well, at least for me it will. I enjoy the Grimm's dark tales because everyone is mostly known with the clean and happy tales, and these are actually the complete gruesome details. I'm not saying I love the grisly of these tales, but it's interesting growing up and thinking they were all sweet and dandy, when they actually have a dark and twisted side to them. I'm everywhere in this book, reading different tales out of order, but will be done reading it completely someday. If you don't finish it, it definitely is a lovely addition to your book collection.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I highly recommend this, as well as all the others in this Leatherbound Classics series!

Rarely do you see these classic pieces of literature rendered with such sophisticated elegance and beauty, faithfully honoring and respecting the equally unique, creative literary material loved by generations of readers. I have been enjoying them all, and eagerly look forward to each new addition to the series.

Hopefully, the publisher (who appears to be unreachable) will keep releasing more of these fine collected works, including such classic writers as Baum, Milne, Kipling, Twain, London, Melville, Hemingway, Stoker, Shelley, as well as other poets like Virgil, Longfellow, Keats, Eliot, Hawthorne, and Blake.

Time will tell, but hope is alive. Get on board with these fantastic masterpieces of literature, and be swept away in worlds of imagination!

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Love it!

As my father's family is german, it was only natural for my brother and I to grow up reading the Grimm's brothers. When I saw this book in the store, I turned into a child again. I HAD to own it, and I do. This collection contains the adult versions of these very popular tales. Because of the quality and craftmenship of this book, any little ones will have to be content reading my Children's Classics edition. I have gotton half-way through this edition. Be warned, the sticker may attempt to fall off.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great gift for new families!

Received as a gift. Read from it everynight to my daughter. Only downside, not many pictures.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Terrific Collection.

This is a wonderful compilation of Grimm's fairy tales. A very attractive and collector style book. This would make a wonderful gift - if even to yourself! A great book to pass down. Highly recommended.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Wonderful!

I have always loved fairy tales (who doesn't?)and Grimm's were always my favorite. When i saw this beautiful leatherbound version, i couldn't pass it up!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I read this one cover-to-cover on the commute to and from work.

I read this one cover-to-cover on the commute to and from work. The book looks beautiful, and held up very well to being carried in a backpack and read on a crowded train, it still looks brand new, and my impression is that it is built to last a good, long time.

I've read most of the tales before, but when i was much, much younger. As other reviewers have said, and as you'd probably expect, the stories are not the sanitized Disney versions, but considerably darker - probably not suitable for sensitive children at all. The Brothers Grimm did, however, sanitize the original tales a bit, taking out much of the violence and sexual content, but I don't think most modern readers would realize it without reading between the lines a bit - it's still there, but implied subtly, or hidden altogether.

Interestingly, the girls and women in the stories are typically much, much stronger and more independent than the heroines of more modern versions of the tales.

Something I didn't remember about the stories was the rather striking number of older, pagan fairy tales which had been given a quick, religious make-over: the angels, devils, and saints in those occasional tales clearly would have been faeries, elves, and dwarves in the earliest incarnations of the stories, the Virgin Mary has been substituted for pagan goddesses, faerie queens, and witches in some of the stories, and various saints, Jesus, and God have replaced trickster gods in others. The effect is vaguely jarring and somewhat surreal, but again, reading between the lines a bit, one can fairly easily imagine what the original tales might have been like before being retold with nominally Christian characters.

To address some of the things mentioned by other reviewers: The book seems quite sturdy to me, I had no problems with torn pages or flaking covers. The illustrations, typography, cover, and overall presentation are very nice, and this looks and feels exactly the way an old book of faerie tales should, and I noticed no typos or other errors (though there may have been some archaic spellings and sentence structures that would have been artifacts of translation and the time the book was originally written.) The introduction describing the Grimms and what they were trying to accomplish is the best place to start reading this - it's essentially an archive of tales handed down through generations orally which were in danger of vanishing. The book didn't seem like a long or tedious read to me; some of the repeated stories were clearly regional variants of the tales as collected by the Brothers Grimm. The stories and illustrations were a product of their time, and indeed the small handful of tales referencing Jews were unfortunate, but a window into the beliefs of the German people at the time, and much easier to handle in the context of better understanding a foreign people from a different time.

I would certainly recommend this book to the library of anyone interested in classic literature, European history and culture, fantasy, horror stories, and faerie tales; it's probably not suitable for younger children, but it's a great read for older children and adults.

The book looks great, but I was really surprised when I opened i

The book looks great, but I was really surprised when I opened it and saw a picture of a 'jumping Jew', with a big hooked nose, wild hair and gold coins falling out of the pockets. I read the story, and it wasn;' Mark Twain-esque where the supposed 'evil' race is actually decent...the Jew is evil. Decided to return it since I didn't want to have to explain to my daughter why a Jew was depicted in this way.

wonderful collectors item. beautiful full-color pictures. nice-w

wonderful collectors item. beautiful full-color pictures. nice-written. thrilling tales. period

I decided I was going to get the whole collection, four at a tim

I decided I was going to get the whole collection, four at a time. I haven't even got my first four and I am so excited to read them and share them with my family. These will be a family heirloom to us. I would suggest these Tales for all ages and know that the tales are all a comfort for the elderly to small children. I have read all your reviews based on these books and I am in agreement with all y our opinions so I know I don't have the books yet but I know what to expect and can't wait!

This book is absolutely beautiful from the golden shine on the c

This book is absolutely beautiful from the golden shine on the cover and pages to the painted forest found inside. All of the artwork done by Arthur Rackham are incredible and while reading I loved discovering pieces within the pages. The stories are incredible short though which I actually enjoyed. Even though they were short didn't mean that they were short of meaning.

Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales

Grimm's fairy tales is nicely bound as a gift.

Ok, but got a bit repetitive...

These stories were interesting, and sometimes entertaining. However, after about half of them, they start repeating with the same stories, perhaps with different characters and monsters, but still noticably the same story. I had to push myself to finish this huge book, as they got a bit dry towards the middle and on.

A Fairy tale for Every Night!

This book is exactly want someone with an imaginative mind needs. The look of it gives it a classic look and the stories are just like how I remembered them. The Brothers Grimm has created classic fairy tales with the dark twist added to them, which is perfect for my friends and I. I get to enjoy a classic fairy tale every night!