The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales (Knickerbocker Classics) Hardcover – September 19, 2013

This is a review of the Knickerbocker Classics cloth hardback with slipcase.What I really dislike about this presentation is that they very stupidly chose to split the color illustrations up into pairs and throw them haphazardly throughout the entire book. This leaves you with irritating instances such as having the color illustration for Rapunsel and one of the ones from Hansel and Gretel directly in the middle of Little Red Riding Hood, even though there are only two color illustrations for LRRH anyway. This would lead any sensible human being to place the two related illustrations there instead of two completely unrelated ones, but sense was not to be found at Knickerbocker that day... It's inexcusably bad presentation and shows a lack of thoughtful design. Some illustrations are hundreds of pages away from their story for no reason at all. Barne's and Noble did this the correct way in their leather bound edition of the fables.Another thing wrong with this edition that Barne's and Noble got right was using the now synonymous names for the stories instead of these obscure versions of the titles. This book has "Little Red-Cap", "Thumbling" (instead of Tom Thumb) and a few other oddities that add nothing to the book. The paper in this book is also incredibly thin--obnoxiously thin in my opinion.I bought this edition because I thought the slip case and cloth binding looked really nice and are far less childish and girly than the Barnes and Noble leather bound edition. And it does look as expected and both the book and the slipcase are very sturdy and made to last, and I like the design of both. The black and white illustrations are done properly and if you're not bothered by the things I mentioned you'll appreciate how well made the book is even though its layout is glaringly foolish.

I have the green cover book which is very pretty with nice illustrations inside. However, the entire reason I purchased this book is for the Pied Piper of Hamelin Story and it is missing! What is going on here? they have over 200 stories in this book, but no Pied Piper story.Does anyone else have this problem? I would not have purchased this book if I knew that it did not include this story.

After reading some of the negative reviews, I had my reservations about this book. One of the recurrent complaints was about very thin, see-through pages. Imagine my surprise when I received the book and saw that the pages were just fine. Nothing see-through about them (I had already decided to compensate for the thinness by putting white paper underneath the page I was reading from, to keep the next page's print from showing through). Guess what--no paper needed. The entire book is lovely, well made, beautiful, sturdy, and great addition to my book shelves. I'm glad I bought it and would do it again in a red-hot minute.

I noticed other reviewer pics were of different versions of the book. I purchased the green woodsy edition with the protective sleeve and am very pleased! There are a few colored illustrations peppered throughout the book but more black and white illustrations. I am very happy with this purchase!

This is a really wonderful edition of the famous Grimm's Fairy Tales. It goes into the history of the Grimm brother and talks about how they collected and amassed the tales and then proceeded to publish them. The book has a wonderful hard box cover that it slips into, so it is well protected. Also comes with a ribbon attached with which to mark your place. A very sturdy book!

We have a 6 year-old and a 6 month-old and realized that we didn't have any fairy tales on the bookshelves! Bought this, along with Hans Christian Anderson, Mother Goose, and Aesop's fables to be sure that we were covered, and this is a beautifully printed edition that will last on the bookshelves for years to come.The book doesn't have a jacket; the design is printed directly onto the cover, and the slipcover matches exactly as pictured. The slipcover is a thick cardboard or very light (such as balsa) wood.

This book is very well done and has a plethora of Grimm's Fairy Tales---although I would not know if they all are there. I'll take the publisher's word for it.The only disappointment is that the book I received did not have gilt edged pages. Not a great loss but it would have looked much better if it had. Still a nice book with a nice looking slip case.

At first glance this book is absolutely beautiful. The book is inside a very thick cardboard sleeve and It has a built in bookmark. However, it does have some fairly thin pages. You will see the illustrations and text from the next page as you are reading. That was somewhat annoying to start but I have since gotten used to it. The illustrations are not always within the story. So you will have to look up the illustration for the story you are reading in the illustration index. For example the illustrations for Hansel and Gretel may be in the middle of Snow White. Overall, in my opinion the thin pages and the scattering of illustrations are easily overlooked. This is a beautiful book full of amazing stories. There is also a cool introduction on the story of the Grimm brothers I found interesting. It would look great on anyone's bookshelf. I highly recommend it.

The hard box sleeve and the cloth cover that feature the magical and mysterious woodland are what made me buy this book. It is a DELIGHT! The paper is that slightly thin crisp paper of old which adds a sensual texture to page turning. The illustrations that are randomly scattered throughout show illustrators such as Rackham at the top of their game. I loved reading the stories and letting my imagination paint th epictures where there wasn't always an illustration to go with it. I would totally recommend this.

I wasn't sufficiently happy with this to keep it. The binding is good but not outstanding (sewn and clothbound, but not as luxurious as one would think). The pages are quite thin and almost see-through. The stories are newly typeset, and the illustrations are good. However, be aware that the colour plates appear in completely different parts of the volume compared to the story they are supposed illustrate. There is a publisher's note about the edition that is used in this volume (Margaret Hunt's 1897 translation), which was appreciated (see here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iRoQAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PR30#v=onepage&q&f=false).

I looked in bookshops for a complete version of the tales and some seemed mightily overpriced.This edition is not flashy but comprehensive with good illustrations.One should not pay too much attention to the fact that the illustrations are well spaced out and not necessarily relevant to the adjacent story.This is collector's edition and not necessarily for young children.If you want a quality children's book with selected classic tales try the Taschen version.

The cover and the pages feel fantastic and is very well made.This version really is as close to the original translations. It is written in more "olden times" language and thus may not be suitable for young ones to read as it can get rather difficult.I can't really fault anything about the quality of the book or the translation of the fairy tales. Just make sure to check out the "look inside" link to make sure you are comfortable reading the stories in the older English language form. If not, then I would recommend the Jack Zipes translations.

Beautifully presented with a rigid dust case in a similar matching forest design to the cover which has a pleasant cloth like feel, and ribbon page marker. This book was a gift from my Mum, to replace the very old and battered one passed down from my granny and eventually lost in a house move many many years ago. This is the same book, with the same Racham illustrations that I fell in love with as a child. The print is very small, which I suppose is unavoidable in such a thick book. The illustrations are all there as in my original copy , but somehow they seem thicker of line and duller of colour. I did not mark it down for this as I am an artist myself and perhaps far too fussy.