we should absolutely make the originals available, next to the "sanitized" versions that are clearly labeled as "not original" or "loosely based on the original story"
Even "The Shining" is labeled as "based on the original novel from Stephen King" and not as a "faithful adaption of ..."
Any other way of presenting the redacted material it's bad, as in "universally bad".
“we should absolutely make the originals available, next to the "sanitized" versions that are clearly labeled as "not original" or "loosely based on the original story"”
My point was definitely not to imply otherwise and I’m sorry if I did. I don’t think it’s wrong to create a new work that happens to eclipse the old work in popularity, I do think it’s wrong to eliminate or censor the old work entirely.
The thing is that the original fairy tales are surely not "sanitized" versions of the ones we know.
So if the idea is that we should clean-up the original stories so that they can replace the ones we know now in the future, we're doing a disservice to future people, because we have the oldest ones that have been printed at disposal and should not deprive them of the possibility of reading them, if they want to.
The fact that before the press there was no book of fairy tales is irrelevant.
The Grimm's are the Grimm's and we should keep printing and reading them as they were intended by the authors.
Which edition? The first edition wasn't even available in English until relatively recently, and they went through continuous change. The first editions weren't even meant to be suitable for children at the time, so it's kind of weird to insist that that's the version that kids need today.
This recent translation means English readers probably have better access to the original Grimm tales than they ever had before! Which is of course a good thing. Obviously the originals are in the public domain and aren't going anywhere, and so are lots of older 19th century English translations, presumably with varying degrees of fidelity. Nothing's being hidden from anyone; "actually the original Grimms' stories were pretty dark" is a factoid that is pretty widely known these days, I think?
But anyway, the article supposes that specifically kids should be exposed to the earliest, least expurgated versions of the story possible, which is very odd. Even in the 19th century people thought these stories were too dark for kids, which is why there was commercial success in selling shorter, lighter, more family-friendly versions, which the Grimms did. I don't think these stories would be awful for a bright 12 year old to read or anything, but the implication throughout is that these were considered kid-friendly in the past, which they weren't, at least in their original versions.
> The first edition wasn't even available in English
Does it even matter?
The Grimm brothers were German, the books in German do exist.
Pinocchio is an Italian work, in Italy it's always been available and a huge success, does it matter if the english version came out much later?
To me the fact that they have become available, shows that the interest among the English readers has grown.
> "actually the original Grimms' stories were pretty dark"
> kids should be exposed to the earliest, least expurgated versions of the story possible, which is very odd.
I read "The Hobbit" as a kid, it's pretty dark too, but I loved it. Read it again as an adult, didn't like it that much.
People are different, kids are not a monolith, they come from different backgrounds, especially different parents' backgrounds and opinions and values.
People I know don't let their kids watch Peppa Pig or the Winx, others don't want them to be schooled about religious stuff, they should be exposed doesn't mean they should be forced to read them, but that we should not pretend that we know better than them what it's good for them
I think kids should definitely be allowed to read the old stories! I'm just objecting to the article's handwringing about adaptations being "sanitized." It's good to adapt things, it's also good to read the stuff that's being adapted. If a bright 12 year old wants to read the gory Grimm versions of the stories then by all means, have at it.
Even "The Shining" is labeled as "based on the original novel from Stephen King" and not as a "faithful adaption of ..."
Any other way of presenting the redacted material it's bad, as in "universally bad".