When most people think of The Brothers Grimm they picture fairy tales, magic, and dark German folklore. The two brothers are arguably some of the most influential authors of recent Western history. Here are a few things you probably never knew about both them and their work.

1. The Brothers Grimm were not always successful authors

Both Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were scholars who made very little money, and they lived in poverty to such an extent that at one point they are said to have written that they had no furniture in their home that was safe. It was not until the second edition of their Fairy Tales collection for children that they began to make money.

2. The original edition of the Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales was not meant for children

The first edition was really more of a scholarly text aimed at adults. It contained several versions of each folktale, and was heavily annotated.

3. The Grimms wanted to help preserve the "National German Identity"

The main premise of their folktale collection was that Jacob and Wilhelm wanted to collected German folktales, true folktales from the simple, and idyllic peasantry of the German countryside. So they claimed that they were to go around Germany themselves and find peasants on their farms, and at work and collect from them themselves the folktales they had to tell. They wanted to preserve what they considered their good, pure, German heritage.

4. The folktales they collected did not really come from the Peasentry (For the most part)

The Grimm's really never did go hiking about the German countryside, stopping at farms and taverns, asking the good peasants of the nation about their favorite tales. Really, they asked people they already knew, mostly servants, friends, family members, and some common people. However, almost all of these people were either literature, or had first heard the stories from a literate person, so really the Grimm's were not collecting the pure, German, oral-fairytale, but more educated versions of them.

5. The Grimms "cleaned up" a lot of their tales

After the first, more scholarly edition didn't sell well, Wilheim Grimm edited the collection, in order to sell it as stories for children. So he cleaned up A LOT of stuff. He took out all references to sex (Such as Rapunzel being impregnated in the tower by the prince), and he kept, plus intensified a lot of the violence. He also included more instances of characters being punished, such as in the Grimm's version of Snow White, where in the Evil Queen has to dance in hot, iron shoes until she dies. The Grimms did this because they wanted to promote the traits of a "good" German child: Obediance, bravery, and strength.