Hans Brinker Or, The Silver Skates. A Story of Life in Holland.

DODGE, Mary Mapes.

$12,500.00

Item Number: 76002

New York: James O'Kane, 1866.

First edition of the author’s second and best known work. Octavo, original green cloth, gilt titles to the spine. 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. He represented Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives (1843–47). 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. Owen also served as a delegate to the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1850 and was appointed as U.S. minister (Chargé d’Affaires (1853–58) to Naples. Illustrated by F.O.C. Darley and Thomas Nast. In very good condition with some dampstaining to the rear board. First editions are scarce, presentation copies are rare signed.

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). 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.