Mary Mapes Dodge

Mary Mapes Dodge

Mary Mapes Dodge (26 January 1831–21 August 1905) was an American children's writer and editor, best known for her novel Hans Brinker.

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. 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. 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, for she was able to solicit stories from a number of well-known writers including Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, and Robert Louis Stevenson. 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 is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery, at 1137 North Broad Street, Hillside, New Jersey.^[1]

Principal Works

Prose

• Irvington Stories, 1864
• Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates, 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

References

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

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mary Mapes Dodge

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Mary Mapes Dodge

• Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates readable free online from the University of Florida Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature

• Other works by Mary Mapes Dodge readable free online from the University of Florida Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature

• Works by Mary Mapes Dodge at Project Gutenberg