This new translation offers a more representative selection of the Grimms' tales by including fables and morality tales as well as all the best known 'fairy' tales. It faithfully conveys the Grimms' own texts and provides a wealth of information about the origins of the stories, their literary evolution at the hands of the Grimms, with examples of earlier versions and stories that were omitted as being unsuitable for children.

Joyce Crick was, until her retirement, Senior Lecturer in German at University College London. She has translated widely, including texts by Hamann, Herder, Schlegel, Novalis, and Solger. For Oxford World's Classics she has translated Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams and for the new Penguin Freud series, The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious. She has edited the German material for the Princeton edition of Coleridge's Notebooks and his translation of Schiller's Wallenstein.