Folklorists and philologists: Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1786-1859), both born in Hanau, WC Germany. After studying at Marburg, Jacob became a clerk in the War Office at Kassel, and in 1808 librarian to Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia. Wilhelm, in poorer health, remained in Kassel, where he became secretary of the elector’s library. He was joined there by Jacob in 1816. Between 1812 and 1822 they published the three volumes known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Ger Kinder und Hausmarchen).
Jacob’s Deutsche Grammatik (1819, Germanic Grammar, revised 1822-40) is perhaps the greatest philological work of the age; he also formulated Grimm’s law of sound changes. In 1829 the two removed to Gottingen, where Jacob became professor and librarian, and Wilhelm under-librarian (professor in 1835). In 1841 they both received professorships at Berlin, and in 1854 began work on their historical dictionary, Deutsches Worterbuch.