In 2009, a trove of lost fairy tales collected by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth - a 19th-century collector of Bavarian folk tales and contemporary of the Brothers Grimm - was unearthed in a municipal archive in Germany. Unlike the Grimms, who polished the stories they collected, adapting to contemporary tastes, von Schonwerth recorded the stories as they were told, plucking them directly from the living, breathing tree of oral storytelling, retaining their darker themes and sometimes shocking violence.
About the book
In 2009, a trove of lost fairy tales collected by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth - a 19th-century collector of Bavarian folk tales and contemporary of the Brothers Grimm - was unearthed in a municipal archive in Germany. Unlike the Grimms, who polished the stories they collected, adapting to contemporary tastes, von Schonwerth recorded the stories as they were told, plucking them directly from the living, breathing tree of oral storytelling, retaining their darker themes and sometimes shocking violence.