Page:Grimm Goblins (1876).djvu/9

 PREFACE

TO THE PRESENT EDITION OF "GRIMM'S GOBLINS."

class of writing can enthral the imagination, enchain the heart, or influence the fancy of a child like Fairy lore. The unbounded popularity of Fairy Tales in all countries is proverbial. This is especially noticeable in the North of Europe and throughout Germany. Hans Christian Andersen, with his immortal "Eventyr" (a word by the way that translated by our English equivalent "Fairy Tales" falls far short of the latitude allowed to the subject), and MM. Grimm with their wendrous Goblin Legends, have flooded the whole of Europe with their marvellous whimsicalities and exquisite subtleties of fancy. They have been translated into most modern languages with increasing success for the advancement of their popularity. And this edition, collated with scrupulous fidelity, and translated with reverent fealty for the purity of the text, will, we trust, advance the fame of the Brothers Grimm in England and place within the reach of every English lover of these bewitching legends the completest copy, at the lowest price, ever yet produced in England.

Child-teaching should be to instruct, as well as to amuse. It should tend to educate the character, while pleasing the fancy, so that the result shall not be ephemeral pleasure, but lasting good. We venture with great diffidence to dissent from the dictum of a great modern writer, who, writing on the influence of Fairy Tales, asserts that "such tales are not a necessary element in the education of the young." Such Fairy tales as these of Grimm's, and those of Andersen's; ever