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This chapter considers Edgar Taylor's (1793–1839) adaptation of the Grimms' German Popular Stories (1823, 1826), which radically changed the destiny of what we today call the “fairy tales” of the Brothers Grimm. It recounts and analyzes the Grimms' intentions in collecting and publishing the two volumes of the first edition of their tales in 1812 and 1815 as well as the second edition of 1819. Then the chapter reviews the history of how Taylor came upon their tales in the early 1820s and why he decided to “translate” them into English. This chapter concludes by discussing how Taylor participated in the romantic antiquarian movement, what we would today call folklore, to recapture neglected relics of the past, and to defend the imagination against rationalism.

This chapter discusses how the Grimms became involved in hyping their own tales to change their reception at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It first considers some of the theoretical aspects of hyping and the particular role hyping plays in the media paratexts of the culture industry. Hereafter the chapter reviews how the Brothers Grimm changed the format and scope of their tales, primarily under the influence of Taylor's 1823 translation, German Popular Stories, to make their tales more accessible to the general reading public in Germany. Lastly, the chapter examines some recent filmic adaptations of fairy tales and considers whether the hyping of these films detracts from the value of the fairy-tale genre and storytelling in general.

The first English translation of Charles Perrault’s French fairy tale, “Bluebeard,” was provided by Robert Samber in 1729. Samber’s edition, entitled Histories, or Tales of past Times...with morals, by M. Perrault, Translated into English was followed by the publishing of a series of reprints, new editions, and bilingual versions throughout the eighteenth century. Moreover, it also strongly impressed itself on the “Bluebeard tradition” that continued to thrive throughout the Victorian period. English translations based on Perrault’s “Bluebeard” remained the norm even after the appearance of Grimm stories from Kinderund Hausmärchen (Grimm 1812–1815, 1819), which were translated (without any “Bluebeard” variant) into English as German Popular Stories in 1823–1826 (Grimm). Perrault’s “Bluebeard” was translated in editions of Mother Goose. In her book on English chapbooks, Margaret Spufford’s very first quotation from a reader includes a testimony to “Bluebeard.”