All stories are read from The Complete First Edition: The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Translated and Edited by Jack Zipes.
Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm lived in Hesse-Cassel (Germany) during the 19th century, and collected German folk tales which had before only been passed down orally. Folk tales, as an oral tradition, varied from each telling and between regions. While they didn’t create the folk tales, they did popularize them, and their versions were the inspiration for thousands of adaptions. Not all of the stories were German, but were thought by the brothers as embodying German culture.
To craft their collection of folk tales, the brothers invited people of differing backgrounds—from peasants to aristocrats—to tell them stories. Once written down, the brothers edited the tales quite extensively. Throughout both their lifetimes, they edited the stories dozens of times, adding dialogue and morals and symbolism, changing the style, making it a single narrative voice, and removing elements altogether. One of the first iterations was supposed to be published by their friend, who was producing his own collection of folk tales. But those 52 tales were never included. Their first official collection was published in two volumes in 1812 and 1815, respectively. They published several different versions of their tales, until the final version was published in 1857.
Their collection of folk tales grew from 52, to 156, and now surpasses 200 and includes: Cinderella, Snow White, Rupunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and Little Red Riding Hood.