Mary Mapes Dodge was an American children's writer

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

 and editor, best known for her novel Hans Brinker

Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates

Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates is a novel by American author Mary Mapes Dodge, first published in 1865...

.

Biography

Mary was born Mary Elizabeth Mapes to Prof. James Jay Mapes and Sophia Furman in New York City. She acquired a good education under private tutors. In 1851 she married the lawyer William Dodge

William Dodge

William Dodge may refer to:* William E. Dodge US politician, businessman, and general* William de Leftwich Dodge US artist* William Dodge , American bobsledder* Bill Dodge, Nigerian professor at Harvard UniversitySee also...

. Within the next four years she gave birth to two sons, James and Harrington. In 1857, William faced serious financial difficulties and left his family in 1858. A month after his disappearance his body was found dead from an apparent drowning, and Mary Mapes Dodge became a widow.

In 1859 she began writing and editing, working with her father to publish two magazines, the Working Farmer and the United States Journal. Within a few years she had great success with a collection of short stories, The Irvington Stories (1864), and a novel was solicited. Dodge then wrote Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates, which became an instant bestseller.

Later in life she was an associate editor of Hearth and Home, edited by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...

. She had charge of the household and children's departments of that paper for many years. She became an editor in her own right with the children's St. Nicholas Magazine

St. Nicholas Magazine

St. Nicholas Magazine was a popular children's magazine, founded by Scribner's in 1873. The first editor was Mary Mapes Dodge, who continued her association with the magazine until her death in 1905. Dodge published work by the country's best writers, including Louisa May Alcott, Francis Hodgson...

, for she was able to solicit stories from a number of well-known writers including Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

, Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...

, and Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

. St. Nicholas became one of the most successful magazines for children during the second half of the nineteenth century, with a circulation of almost 70,000 children.

Dodge died at her summer cottage in Tannersville, New York

Tannersville, New York

Tannersville is a village in Greene County, New York, USA. The village is in the east-central part of the town of Hunter on Route 23A. The population was 539 at the 2010 census.- History :...

, in 1905. She is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery

Evergreen Cemetery, Hillside

Evergreen Cemetery and Crematory is a cemetery and crematorium located at 1137 North Broad Street, Hillside, New Jersey. Parts of it are in Hillside, Elizabeth, and Newark. The cemetery is listed on both the New Jersey Register and the National Register of Historic Places, since 1991.Notable graves...

, at 1137 North Broad Street, Hillside, New Jersey

Hillside, New Jersey

Hillside is a township in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 21,404.Hillside was incorporated as a township on April 3, 1913, from portions of Union Township, based on the results of a referendum held on April 29, 1913.The town...

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Principal works

Prose

• Irvington Stories, 1864
• Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates
  Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates
  Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates is a novel by American author Mary Mapes Dodge, first published in 1865...
  
  , 1865
• A Few Friends and How They Amused Themselves, 1869
• Baby Days, 1876
• Donald and Dorothy, 1883
• Baby World, 1884
• The Land of Pluck, 1894

Verse

• Rhymes and Jingles 1874
• Along the Way 1879
• When Life Is Young 1894

Sources

• "Dodge, Mary Elizabeth (Mapes)" American Authors 1600–1900 The H. W. Wilson Company, New York, 1938
• Howard Brown, John, The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, The Biographical Society, 1904. Google Books

External links

• Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates readable free online from the University of Florida Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature
  University of Florida Baldwin Library
  The Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature in the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections at the University of Florida's George A. Smathers Libraries contains more than 103,000 volumes published in Great Britain and the United States from the early 18th century through the...
  
  
• Other works by Mary Mapes Dodge readable free online from the University of Florida Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature
• Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. James Mapes Dodge (Josephine Kern), was the sculptor of The Good Fairy Statue in 1916.