A Short Review of The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales, by Franz Xaver Schonwerth

The Turnip Princess and other newly discovered fairy tales by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Grimm Brothers weren't the only ones collecting fairy and folk tells in 19th century Germany. "In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Schonwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm." But most of Schonwerth's (umlaut over the o) were lost, until just a few years ago, "when thirty boxes of manuscripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive" (back cover).

Now, here it is a selection in English. What some might not know is that the Grimms, over the years, edited the tales they collected. Schonwerth never did. These are dark stories, many of them, violent, and far more frank in terms of sexuality and human behavior. Some of the heroes just aren't. There are several that are familiar, such as variants of Cinderella, Tom Thumb, and The Pied Pier of Hamlin, among others. The explorations of human greed and love and family and the randomness of life are all here, as are the questions of what and who we are and where we are in the universe.

Lovers of the fairy tale, take note.



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