The first edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales contained 86 tales in its first volume, published in 1812. The collection was originally titled “Children’s and Household Tales,” or Kinder- und Hausmärchen in German.
The number 86 refers specifically to volume one of the first edition, not to the complete first-edition set. A second volume followed in 1815, adding 70 more tales. Together, the two volumes contained 156 numbered stories in the first large edition.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm presented the collection as a record of German oral and literary tradition rather than as a book written solely for children. Early editions included scholarly notes and sometimes contained violence and frightening material that later editors softened.
The collection continued changing across successive editions. Stories were added, removed, revised, or renumbered, and the seventh edition of 1857 contained 210 tales plus ten children’s legends. That later total is why people sometimes mistakenly give 200 or another rounded number when asked about the 1812 first edition. The precise answer for the first volume is 86.