Manhattan Rare Book Company

AN EXTRAORDINARY PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY WILHELM GRIMM TO ONE OF THE WOMEN WHO CONTRIBUTED TALES.

A remarkable survival connecting the published Grimm canon directly to one of the women who helped create it, this copy bears both Wilhelm Grimm's presentation inscription to Amalie Hassenpflug and her own ownership signature: her stories entered the collection without her name, while here, in her own hand, it survives. The copy thus materially preserves the collaborative, and often obscured, role of women behind one of the most influential works in the history of children's literature.

Inscribed volumes are exceedingly rare: From the collection of Justin G. Schiller, widely recognized as the leading authority on rare children's books. Schiller has noted that in his fifty-plus years active in the rare book world, this was only the second time he had handled an inscribed volume of Grimm's tales, both of which were inscribed to Amalie Hassenpflug. This copy has the added benefit of having Amalie's ownership inscription as well, which the other inscribed copy did not have.

The Inscription and recipient:

Wilhelm Grimm inscribed the first volume "Dem lieben Malchen Hassenpflug / von seinem Treuen Freunde / Wilhelm Grimm. / Göttingen 23 October 1837. " ("dear Malchen Hassenpflug, from her true friend"): an association that reaches directly into the origins of one of the foundational works of world literature. Amalie Hassenpflug (1800–1871) and her sisters Marie and Jeanette belonged to the circle of women who supplied the Grimms with stories that entered the Kinder- und Hausmärchen, and Amalie herself is credited with contributing approximately ten tales. Their role illuminates a larger story about women, authorship, and the construction of the literary canon: the familiar image of the brothers gathering ancient stories directly from anonymous peasants obscures the collaborative networks through which many tales actually reached them.

Later scholarship has recovered just how thoroughly the identities of these women could disappear from the record. The mysterious "Alte Marie" ("Old Marie"), long believed an elderly servant, was eventually identified as Amalie's sister Marie Hassenpflug, now recognized as the source of more than twenty tales, including versions of Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty. Wilhelm Grimm, who played the principal editorial role in shaping these narratives, presented this copy to one of the storytellers who supplied his material: a contributor whose own name appears nowhere in the printed attribution, but who would place it in this copy herself.

With Amalie Hassenpflug's ownership signature; her name in a book she helped create:

Amalie Hassenpflug's ownership signature gives this copy a further dimension. Although credited by later scholarship with contributing approximately ten tales to the Kinder- und Hausmärchen, she is nowhere named as a contributor in the published work. Here, in her own copy, her name appears in her own hand. Together with Wilhelm Grimm's presentation inscription, the signature makes unusually tangible the collaborative origins of the collection: the printed book names the Grimms; this copy also preserves the name of one of the women whose storytelling helped create it.

The Edition:

The 1837 edition (the first "Grosse Ausgabe") marks an important stage in the evolution of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Newly enlarged to 167 fairy tales and nine Kinderlegenden, it was the first edition designated the "Grosse Ausgabe," and the first published by Dieterich in Göttingen rather than Reimer in Berlin, distinguishing the complete collection from the smaller selection intended for children.

Wilhelm presented the volumes on 23 October 1837, during the Göttingen Seven crisis that culminated in the dismissal of Jacob and Wilhelm from the university that December.

Wilhelm's inscription is in ink on the pastedown of volume 1; Amalie's ownership signature is in ink of the first blank of volume 2. Both signatures are exceptionally strong.

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Kinder- und Hausmärchen [Children's and Household Tales]. Göttingen: Dieterichsche Buchhandlung, 1837 Edition: Third edition overall; first enlarged "Grosse Ausgabe". Two volumes, small octavo, original publisher's decorative colored lithographic paper over boards by H. Asmus. Each volume with steel-engraved frontispiece designed by Ludwig Emil Grimm and a decorative half-title lithographed in color by H. Delius. Spines faded, scuffing and wear to extremities.

Price: $210,000 .