Nowhere is this more evident than in Gossip from the Forest, a highly original and poetical rendition of 12 Grimms tales interwoven with stunning essays about their relationship to British forests. Maitland is especially dedicated to maintaining the English cultural allegiance to the Grimms' tales through adaptation. Both writers have previously published numerous fairy tales, but with these new books, they acknowledge an even greater cultural debt to the Grimms' stories and make a significant contribution to their ongoing heritage in England, as well as in other English-speaking countries. Two new books testify to the extraordinary legacy of the Grimms' tales in England, North America, and other English-speaking countries: Sara Maitland's Gossip from the Forest: The Roots of Our Forests and Fairytales (2012) and Philip Pullman's Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version (2012). Indeed, these so-called "German" tales collected by the Grimms and appropriated by Anglo-Americans become very much part of the British and American cultural heritage. Two extremes became noticeable in Great Britain and North America: a trivialization of the Grimms' tales that transformed them into amusing products for profit and a critical exploration and interpretation of the tales that endowed them with great cultural significance. The Grimms stories became Anglicized and, of course, Americanized through the Disney films and merchandise. The English success of the Grimms' tales led to all sorts of adaptations for adults and children in the twentieth century - parodies, melodramatic films, vaudeville shows, opera, ballet, comic books, postcards, plays for children and adults, musicals, paintings, photographs, and so on. Thanks to Taylor and other British translators, the Grimms became known as delightful writers for children whose books also had an appeal for adults, even though the original works were never intended for children. Meanwhile, Taylor, who published another translation called Gammer Grethel in 1839, continued to influence the reception and legacy of the Grimms in Great Britain and also in North America up through the twentieth century. The Grimms remained true to their original scholarly intention of salvaging the great oral tradition of storytelling, while artfully editing the tales according to the tastes and values of their contemporary reading public. Surprisingly, the serious Grimms, who never took care to have their tales enlivened with illustrations, were so impressed by Taylor's highly successful book that they followed his example in all the editions they published after 1823 and until 1857. He also included 22 hilarious illustrations by the great caricaturist George Cruikshank. Actually, Taylor adapted the Grimms' tales, and thus transformed them into unusual jocose stories for children and middle-class families. PERHAPS THE GREATEST IRONY concerning the profound legacy of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's Children's and Household Tales (1812), celebrating its bicentenary worldwide this year, is that the fame of the tales is due in great part to Edgar Taylor, a British lawyer, who produced the first English translation, German Popular Stories, in 1823.
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