We all know stories such as "Snow White" and "Hansel and Gretel" so intimately that it can be easy to forget that they haven't been around forever. In a manner of speaking, I suppose they have been around forever. But they weren't collected and codified until the early 19th century when, in a part of Germany that was in the midst of turmoil, brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm took on the thankless task of collecting stories that, until that time, had only been passed down around fireplaces and in knitting circles, shared as an oral tradition between family and friends.

In Kate Forsyth's account of the Grimm brothers' work, the source of many of their most famous stories was their neighbor, a girl named Dortchen Wild. As Forsyth, a scholar of fairy tales herself, explains in an author's note, the specific sources of many of the Grimms' tales remain vague at best, but it’s clear from their notes that many of the stories we now know and love came from the family of Dortchen Wild. In THE WILD GIRL, Forsyth imagines the genesis of these stories, and the start of a passionate and forbidden love affair between Dortchen and Wilhelm.

"Forsyth, whose earlier novel was inspired by the story of 'Rapunzel,' takes an innovative approach to incorporating fairy tale lore into a work of fiction. It will be interesting to see where her research and imagination take her next."

Both Dortchen and Wilhelm came from large families, but Dortchen's family was relatively prosperous, thanks to her father's apothecary business. The Grimms, on the other hand, perpetually struggled to make ends meet, and Dortchen's father, a cruel and abusive man, never saw the Grimm brothers, despite their handsomeness and (dubious) professional ambitions, as suitable suitors for his several daughters. Dortchen and Wilhelm, however, developed a close friendship that first resembled that of a big brother and little sister but eventually became more romantic, despite Herr Wild's (literally) violent objections.

This personal drama unfolds against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, as French occupation and the constant fear of conscription defines Dortchen's formative years. In many ways, THE WILD GIRL is as much an account of how Napoleon's occupation shaped the social history of the Hessen-Cassel region of Germany as it is about the romance or the tellers of tales. Forsyth paints a picture of a small, relatively isolated region confronting massive and unwanted outside influences. What's clear to the reader is that the Grimms were positioned in the right time and place to capture these evocative stories before they were lost to modernity.

At times, especially in the novel's first half, readers might get bogged down in the numerous siblings, who are largely indistinguishable and unessential to the overall plot. Once the older Wild sisters start getting married off (and consequently play a smaller role in the narrative), Forsyth is free to focus on what really interests her --- Dortchen and Wilhelm's forbidden relationship and its parallels to the stories that draw them together. Forsyth, whose earlier novel was inspired by the story of "Rapunzel," takes an innovative approach to incorporating fairy tale lore into a work of fiction. It will be interesting to see where her research and imagination take her next.