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. The novel takes place in the Netherlands and is a colorful fictional portrait of early 19th-century Dutch life, as well as a tale of youthful honor.
The book's title refers to the beautiful silver skates to be awarded to the winner of the ice-skating race Hans Brinker hopes to enter. The novel introduced the sport of Dutch speed skating to Americans, and in U.S. media Hans Brinker is still considered the prototypical speed skater.
The book is also notable for popularizing the story of the little Dutch boy who plugs a dike with his finger.

Overview

, who never visited the Netherlands until after the novel was published, wrote the novel at age 34. She was inspired by her reading of John L. Motley's lengthy, multi-volume history works: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, and History of the United Netherlands. Dodge subsequently did further bibliographical research into the country. She also received much firsthand information about Dutch life from her immigrant Dutch neighbors, the Scharffs, and Dodge wrote in her preface to the 1875 edition of the book that the story of Hans Brinker's father was "founded strictly upon fact". Even so, many of the story's characters have names that are morphologically German rather than Dutch, or are completely obscure.
Full of Dutch cultural and historical information, the book became an instant bestseller, outselling all other books in its first year of publication except Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend. The novel has since been continuously in print, most often in multiple editions and formats, and remains a children's classic.

Plot

In Holland, poor but industrious and honorable 15 year-old Hans Brinker and his younger sister Gretel yearn to participate in December's great ice skating race on the canal. They have little chance of doing well on their handmade wooden skates, but the prospect of the race and the prize of the silver skates excites them and fires their dreams.
Hans' father, Raff Brinker, suffered head trauma when he fell from a dike. It left him chronically ill, with episodes of amnesia and occasional violent outbursts, so he is unable to work. Mrs. Brinker, Hans, and Gretel must all work to support the family and are looked down upon in the community because they are poor. By chance, Hans meets the famous surgeon Dr. Boekman and begs him to treat their father, but the doctor's fees are expensive and he has been very gruff following the death of his wife and disappearance of his son. Eventually, Dr. Boekman is persuaded to examine Mr. Brinker. He diagnoses pressure on the brain, which can be cured by a risky and expensive operation involving trephining.
Hans earns money to buy Gretel a pair of steel skates for the race. Later, when he earns enough to buy himself a pair of skates, he instead offers the money to Doctor Boekman to pay for his father's operation. Touched by this gesture, Dr. Boekman provides the surgery for free, and Hans is able to buy good skates for himself to skate in the race. Hans sacrifices his opportunity to win the boys' race by dropping out of the race to help a friend win. Gretel wins the girls' race and the precious prize: the eponymous Silver Skates.
Mr. Brinker's operation is successful, and he is restored to health and memory. Dr. Boekman is also changed, losing his gruff demeanour when he is reunited with his lost son through the unexpected help of Mr. Brinker. The Brinkers' fortunes are changed further by the almost miraculous recovery of Mr. Brinker's savings, which had been thought lost or stolen ten years ago.
The Brinker parents live a long and happy life. Dr. Boekman helps Hans go to medical school, and Hans becomes a successful doctor. Gretel also grows up to enjoy a happy adult life.

Film adaptations

Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates has been adapted into several films and plays, all of which center around the dramatic ice-skating competition as the climax of the story, in keeping with the book. The film adaptations include:
A short story within the novel has become well known in its own right in popular culture. The story, read aloud in a schoolroom in England, is about a Dutch boy who saves his country by putting his finger in a leaking dike. The boy stays there all night, in spite of the cold, until the adults of the village find him and make the necessary repairs.
In the book, the boy and the story are called simply "The Hero of Haarlem". Although the hero of the dike-plugging tale remains nameless in the book, Hans Brinker's name has sometimes erroneously been associated with the character.
This small tale within Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates has generated numerous versions and adaptations in media. American poet Phoebe Cary—at whose New York City literary gatherings Dodge was a regular guest—wrote a lengthy poem about it called "The Leak in the Dike", published posthumously in 1873, which has been widely anthologized in books of poetry for schoolchildren. Cary also gave the boy a name: Peter.
The tale has also inspired full-fledged children's books of its own, which include:
For tourism purposes, statues of the fictional dike-plugging boy have been erected in Dutch locations such as Spaarndam, Madurodam and Harlingen. The statues are sometimes mistakenly titled "Hans Brinker"; others are known as "Peter of Haarlem". The story of the dike-plugging boy is, however, not widely known in the Netherlands—it is a piece of American, rather than Dutch, folklore.

Origin of the story of the boy and the dike

Versions of the story prior to Hans Brinker appear in several English-language publications from 1850 onward, including the following British and American publications:
In the United Kingdom:
In the U.S.:
The actual authorship and genesis of the story of the boy and the dike is probably the story "Le Petit Éclusier" by prolific French children's author Eugenie Foa, first published in 1848. This appeared in an English translation by Sarah West Lander, titled "The Little Dykeman" and attributed to Foa, in the monthly magazine Merry's Museum for Boys and Girls in March 1868.
Although Dodge was not the originator of the story of the boy and the dike, the immense popularity of her novel Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates made the story very widely known. The story within a story of the nameless little boy's heroism also parallels and emphasizes Hans Brinker's own heroism in the novel.

Footnotes