Jack Zipes is Professor Emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. Some of his recent publications include: The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films (2010), The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre (2012), Grimm Legacies: The Magic Power of Fairy Tales (2014), The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: An Anthology of Magical Tales (2017), and Tales of Wonder: Reading Fairy Tales Through Picture Postcards (2017). He has also translated the first 1812/15 edition of the Grimms' tales, The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (2014).

The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, were German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together collected and published folklore during the nineteenth century. They were among the first and best-known collectors of folk tales, and popularized traditional oral tale types such as "Cinderella", "Hansel and Gretel", "Rapunzel", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Snow White".