The Devil and his Grandmother

A fairytale by the Grimm Brothers
with illustrations by Josef Hegenbarth

The Devil and his Grandmother

The presented booklet marks the prelude to a literary book series. In separate bibliophile editions Hegenbarth's individual drawing series are to be published which are based on works of world literature and are kept in the Hegenbarth Sammlung Berlin.

The booklet

„The Devil and his Grandmother“ combines for the first time one of the less known fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers with eight of Hegenbarth’s drawings from 1942. Hegenbarth’s narrative style often conceiving his picture stories as storyboards is very eminent in this book. The text dates from 1857, the last revised version by Jacob Grimm.

In four additional drawings Hegenbarth works on the fairytale material: one black brush drawing from the collection, two pen drawings and one late picture from other museums. With a lot of additional essays the reader finds a wide range of background information at hand.

The author

D. Andreas Bode, born 1942 in Leipzig, was Director from 1983 till 1992, and from 1992 till 2007 member of the directoraial board of the International Youth Library (IJB ) in Munich. For many years, he was explored the fields of German and international illustration.

He publishes essays and gives lectures about international children’s book illustrators and the history of children’s books. From 1996 till 1998 he was a member of the German Youth Literature jury. Since 1997 he has been juror of the Catholic Children’s and Youth Book Prize and since 2002 of the the Erich Kästner Scholarship of the Stiftung Preussische Seehandlung Berlin.

The fairytale

Three soldiers flee from the army's famine and meet the devil appearing as a dragon. He rescues them and presents them not only with a money whip but also with the promise of their freedom if they solve his riddle after seven years. With the assistance of the devil's grandmother they succeed. Grudgingly, the devil grants them not only their freedom but also the money whip. So the soldiers continue their carefree living.