Throughout the book, Tatar employs the tools not only of a psychoanalyst but also of a folklorist, literary critic, and historian to examine the harsher aspects of these stories. She presents new interpretations of the powerful stories in this book. Few studies have been written in English on these tales, and none has probed their allegedly happy endings so thoroughly."--BOOK JACKET.

I. Children's literature? -- 1. Sex and violence : the hard core of fairy tales -- 2. Fact and fantasy : the art of reading fairy tales -- 3. Victims and seekers : the family romance of fairy tales -- II. Heroes -- 4. Born yesterday : The spear side -- 5. Spinning tales : the distaff side -- III. Villains -- 6. From nags to witches : stepmothers and other ogres -- 7. Taming the beast : Bluebeard and other monsters -- Epilogue : getting even -- Appendixes -- A. Six fairy tales from the Nursery and household tales, with commentary -- B. Selected tales from the first edition of the Nursery and household tales -- C. Prefaces to the first and second editions of the Nursery and household tales -- D. English titles, tale numbers, and German titles of stories cited -- E. Bibliographical note.

For readers of all ages, two hundred and ten tales of the Brothers Grimm, including "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "Snow White," and "Hansel and Gretel," translated by Ralph Manheim, the highly acclaimed and prize-winning translator. Manheim has rediscovered in the original German Grimms’ editions of the tales the unadorned, direct rhythm of the oral form in which they were first recorded. He has retained their ageless magic and mythology and restored the extraordinary vitality and wit, the acute perceptions of human strength and facility mirrored in the facets of these small gems. “The best modern translation of the complete Brothers Grimm.”--Choice

Containing 40 stories in new translations by Tatar this celebration of the richness and dramatic power of the legendary fables also features 150 illustrations, many of them in color, by legendary painters.

Murder, mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide, and incest: the darker side of classic fairy tales is the subject of this groundbreaking and intriguing study of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Nursery and Household Tales. This expanded edition includes a new preface and an appendix featuring translations of six tales with commentary by Maria Tatar. Throughout the book, Tatar draws on the disciplinary tools of psychoanalysis and folklore while also providing historical context to explore the harsher aspects of these stories, presenting new interpretations of tales that engage in a kind of cultural repetition compulsion. No other book so thoroughly challenges us to rethink the happily-ever-after of these classic stories.

Once Upon a Time...Grimm's Fairy Tales have brought magic and delight to millions, throughout the generations all over the world. They collected the oral folktales of their time, which are slightly dark in origin, different from the fairy tales you are used to hearing. In this book, there are timeless classics such as: Little Red-Cap (Little Red Riding Hood) Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) Beauty and the Beast Hansel and Grethel Rumpelstiltskin Snow White Tom ThumbCinderellaRapunzel and 55 others...Collected here are 64 of the most popular stories by the Brothers Grimm with 55 black-and-white illustrations and photos, and a free online link to 62 audio files.

In a book that confronts our society's obsession with sexual violence, Maria Tatar seeks the meaning behind one of the most disturbing images of twentieth-century Western culture: the violated female corpse. This image is so prevalent in painting, literature, film, and, most recently, in mass media, that we rarely question what is at stake in its representation. Tatar, however, challenges us to consider what is taking place--both artistically and socially--in the construction and circulation of scenes depicting sexual murder. In examining images of sexual murder (Lustmord), she produces a riveting study of how art and murder have intersected in the sexual politics of culture from Weimar Germany to the present. Tatar focuses attention on the politically turbulent Weimar Republic, often viewed as the birthplace of a transgressive avant-garde modernism, where representations of female sexual mutilation abound. Here a revealing episode in the gender politics of cultural production unfolds as male artists and writers, working in a society consumed by fear of outside threats, envision women as enemies that can be contained and mastered through transcendent artistic expression. Not only does Tatar show that male artists openly identified with real-life sexual murderers--George Grosz posed as Jack the Ripper in a photograph where his model and future wife was the target of his knife--but she also reveals the ways in which victims were disavowed and erased. Tatar first analyzes actual cases of sexual murder that aroused wide public interest in Weimar Germany. She then considers how the representation of murdered women in visual and literary works functions as a strategy for managing social and sexual anxieties, and shows how violence against women can be linked to the war trauma, to urban pathologies, and to the politics of cultural production and biological reproduction. In exploring the complex relationship between victim and agent in cases of sexual murder, Tatar explains how the roles came to be destabilized and reversed, turning the perpetrator of criminal deeds into a defenseless victim of seductive evil. Throughout the West today, the creation of similar ideological constructions still occurs in societies that have only recently begun to validate the voices of its victims. Maria Tatar's book opens up an important discussion for readers seeking to understand the forces behind sexual violence and its portrayal in the cultural media throughout this century.