Contents and Arrangement Expanded View

Collection Overview

Creator:
Dodge, Mary Mapes, 1830-1905
Title:
St. Nicholas Correspondence of Mary Mapes Dodge
Repository:
Manuscripts Division
Permanent URL:
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/js956f88b
Dates:
1867-1903
Size:
1 box
Storage Note:
Firestone Library (scamss): Box 1
Language:
English

Abstract

Consists of letters to Mary Mapes Dodge in her capacity as editor of the successful New York City children's magazine St. Nicholas from contributors and literary friends.

Collection Description & Creator Information

Description:

The collection consists of letters to Dodge in her capacity as editor of St. Nicholas magazine from contributors and literary friends. Included are autograph letters of Amelia E. Barr, John Burroughs, Susan Coolidge, Rebecca Harding Davis, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Constance Cary Harrison, Bret Harte, William Dean Howells, H.H. (Helen Hunt), Rudyard Kipling, Lucy Larcom, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mrs. Oliphant, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Ruth McEnery Stuart, Celia Thaxter, Edith Matilda Thomas, and John Greenleaf Whittier.

Collection Creator Biography:

Dodge, Mary Mapes, 1830-1905

Mary Mapes Dodge was an American children's writer and editor, best known for her novel Hans Brinker; or The Silver Skates, A Story of Life in Holland. 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 ns2:titled The Irvington Stories (1864). Dodge then wrote Hans Brinker, which became an instant bestseller. Later on she was an associate editor of Health and Home, edited by Harriet Beecher Stowe. She had charge of the household and children's departments of that paper. She became an editor in her own right with the children's magazine St. Nicholas, published by Charles Scribner' Sons, 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.. Dodge is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery, at Hillside, New Jersey.

Collection History

Custodial History

Copies of the Swann Galleries auction catalogs describing the lots which made the collection are kept with the collection.

Appraisal

No appraisal information is available.

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Lauren Hoffman '15 in May 2012. Finding aid written by Lauren Hoffman '15 in May 2012.

Access & Use

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. No further photoduplication of copies of material in the collection can be made when Princeton University Library does not own the original. Inquiries regarding publishing material from the collection should be directed to RBSC Public Services staff through the Ask Us! form. The library has no information on the status of literary rights in the collection and researchers are responsible for determining any questions of copyright.

Credit this material:

St. Nicholas Correspondence of Mary Mapes Dodge; Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Permanent URL:
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/js956f88b
Location:
Firestone Library
One Washington Road
Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
(609) 258-3184
Storage Note:
Firestone Library (scamss): Box 1

Find More

Existence and Location of Copies

Publications: Some of the letters have been published in Catharine Morris Wright's Lady of the Silver Skates (Jamestown, RI: Clingstone Press, 1979)

Genre Terms:
Editors -- New York (State) -- New York -- 19th century -- Correspondence.
Novelists, American -- 19th century -- Correspondence.
Poets, American -- 19th century -- Correspondence.
Women novelists -- 19th century -- Correspondence.
Women poets -- 19th century -- Correspondence.
Names:
Thaxter, Celia, 1835-1894