All the other boys and girls in the village are more excited about an upcoming race whose prize is a pair of silver skates, but Hans and his sister Gretel possess only wooden skates and could never hope to compete. It’s been ten years but young Hans Brinker is determined to earn money and hire the finest doctor in Holland to attempt a cure. The Brinkers are the poorest family in their Dutch village, ever since the terrible day when father Raff Brinker fell from a dike, struck his head and was brought home a lunatic – an event which coincided with the arrival of a mysterious watch and the disappearance of the family’s life savings, rendering the Brinkers destitute.
Title: Hans Brinker, or The Silver SkatesĮdition: Dover Publications, Inc (2003), 276 pagesįirst Line: On a bright December morning long ago, two thinly clad children were kneeling upon the bank of a frozen canal in Holland. It has its flaws, but perhaps they reflect more poorly on we the modern audience than on the book itself. In addition to the climactic championship skating race, the novel includes the celebrated episode of the young “Hero of Harlaam” who stopped up the hole in the dike with his finger and saved the town, a fictitious hero and event for which the Dutch have erected a commemorative statue.A history of Holland, a tour guide of the same and a novel all rolled into one. New York native Mary Mapes Dodge had never visited Holland when she wrote Hans Brinker, but “every detail of life and custom was so carefully verified by the author that the book was immediately accepted by the Dutch as the most faithful story of Dutch life known in Holland” (Meigs, et al., 191). First editions are scarce, presentation copies are rare signed. In very good condition with some dampstaining to the rear board. minister (Chargé d’Affaires (1853–58) to Naples. Owen also served as a delegate to the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1850 and was appointed as U.S. As a member of Congress, Owen successfully pushed through the bill that established Smithsonian Institution and served on the Institution’s first Board of Regents. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “Presented to Robert Dale Owen by the author January, 1866.” The recipient Robert Dale Owen was responsible for introducing the legislation to establish the Smithsonian. Octavo, original green cloth, gilt titles to the spine. $12,500.00 Item Number: 76002įirst edition of the author’s second and best known work. A Story of Life in Holland.ĭODGE, Mary Mapes.
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