Grimm Brothers

Jakob Karl Grimm was born on January 4, 1785, in Hanau, Germany. His brother, Wilhelm Karl Grimm, was born on February 24 of the following year. They were the oldest surviving sons of Philipp Grimm, a lawyer who served as Hanau's town clerk. As small children they spent most of their time together; aside from a brief period of living apart, they were to remain together for the rest of their lives. Their even-tempered personalities made it easy for them to work together on projects. The main difference in their personalities seems to have been that Jakob, the healthier of the two, had more taste for research work, and it was he who worked out most of their theories of language and grammar. Wilhelm was physically weaker but was a somewhat warmer person and more interested in music and literature. He was responsible for the pleasant style of their collection of fairy tales.

The brothers first attended school in Kassel, Germany, and then they began legal studies at the University of Marburg. While there, however, the inspiration of a professor named Friedrich von Savigny awakened in them an interest in past cultures. In 1808 Jakob was named court librarian to the King of Westphalia in Wilhelmshöhe, Germany. In 1816 he became librarian in Kassel, where Wilhelm had been employed since 1814. They were to remain there until 1830, when they obtained positions at the University of Göttingen.

In 1830 the brothers moved to the University of Göttingen, where Jakob was named professor and head librarian and Wilhelm was appointed assistant librarian. As professor, Jakob held lectures on linguistics and cultural history. Wilhelm also attained the rank of professor in 1835. Both were dismissed in 1835 for political reasons. (They had joined in signing a protest against the King's decision to abolish the Hanover constitution.) They first moved back to Kassel but later obtained professorships at Berlin, Germany, where they were to remain until their deaths.

The Grimm brothers' last years were spent in preparing a complete dictionary of the German language, tracing the origin of every word. The first volume, published in 1854, has 1,824 pages but gets only as far as the word Biermolke. Four pages are devoted to the letter A alone, which is termed "the most noble and primeval [ancient] of all sounds." The Grimms' dictionary was carried on by generations of scholars after the brothers' deaths, and it was finally finished in 1960. Its completed form consists of sixteen large volumes.

Wilhelm died in Berlin on December 16, 1859. Jakob continued to work on the dictionary and related projects until his death in Berlin on September 20, 1863.