Proposal & What’s Changed Since

Original Proposal

I plan to create a digital edition of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen that covers all seven editions of the collection published during the brothers’ lifetimes. An edition of this collection would be valuable because it is well known that the Grimms, especially Wilhelm, heavily edited the tales they collected. Earlier editions of Kinder- und Hausmärchen were criticized for not being appropriate for children and much of the Grimms’ editing was to mold the tales into a form that they felt was appropriate for children and served a didactic goal. Therefore, a critical edition of the collection would be able to examine the Grimms’ beliefs on morality, correctness, and proper behavior by studying what they chose to revise. The primary audience for this edition will be scholars interested in fairy tales in general and the Grimms’ revisions in particular. Because the edition is intended for scholars, there will the option to view the tales in many different formats so as to accommodate different types of research and there will be links to related scholarship to help those searching for academic resources.

The edition will have a homepage that describes the project as well as tabs for the tales and relevant scholarship. The tales tab will allow users to select which fairy tale they wish to look at in particular. The tales will be available in German and English and will by default show the version of the tale printed in the last edition. Sections of the tale that changed over time will appear in a different color than the rest of the text. Clicking on the colored text will reveal options to view the version of that section as it appeared in different editions. Tales that were removed from the collection before its final publication will be under a separate heading and appear in their last printed format. It will also be possible to view each tale as it was printed in each edition.

All textual variants that seem to be the result of purposeful editing will be treated as described above. If they appear to be mistakes, Greg’s concept of the copy-text will be used to decide what is printed on the ‘main’ view of the text, the one that contains colored text. The 1812 edition will be used as the copy-text when possible; otherwise, the earliest possible edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen will act as the copy-text. If the user chooses to view the tale in its distinct formats (ie, they choose to examine the 1843 version of “Little Red Cap”) they will be shown the text exactly as it appears in the printed version I am basing my digital edition off of, even if it seems to contain accidental textual variants.

What’s Changed Since?

In designing my proof of concept for this project, I realized that the extent to which the Grimms edited some of the fairy tales in their collection went beyond what I had imagined. When I attempted to portray all of the edits made to the paragraph of Rapunzel I selected on one version of the text, I found that the excerpt became nearly unreadable. Additionally, this method of presenting edits didn’t allow the reader to examine which changes were made when. Therefore, instead of having the 1857 (or latest, for deleted tales) version of the text automatically appear when a user clicks on a tale in the navigation bar, I now imagine that they will be taken to a homepage like the one I have designed for “Rapunzel.” This homepage will offer an overview of notable edits made to the tale and some other academic resources on the selected tale in particular. This allows me to provide extra information about the tale. The homepage will also have buttons leading to each of the editions of the tale. Each version of the text will show what edits were made since the last edition. Now, when an edit is clicked on instead of showing all versions of that section over time it simply shows the previous version. These changes serve to create a more useful and usable interface for users.

I no longer show accidental textual variants in the earlier versions of the text, instead correcting and marking them, because I think it makes for a clearer reading experience. I have also moved my list of relevant scholarship from a separate tab to the homepage of the edition for the sake of easy access.