Hans Brinker has never been out of print

It is the birthday of writer Mary Mapes Dodge (1831), whose novel Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates: A Story of Life in Holland (1865) was very popular when it was first published and has never been out of print. Dodge served as an editor on several magazines, Working Farmer and United States Journal (started with her father), Hearth and Home (edited by Harriet Beecher Stowe) and St. Nicholas Magazine (which carried work by Robert Louis Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain. Hans Brinker is a little Dutch boy who dreams of winning wonderful silver skates in an ice-skating race. He offers his paltry savings for new skates for a risky brain operation for his father, who was injured in a fall from a dike. The popular children's story has been adapted numerous times for television and films.

Finest handmade papers in the world

In 1952, Stevens-Nelson Paper Corporation published what it called "a catalogue of the finest printing and art papers in the world." It was less boast than just a simple statement of fact. Indeed, the company had enlisted the help of small handmade paper shops across the globe.

The result was Specimens, a thick volume with deckled edges and amazing printing and artwork. Each page was a different specialty paper, varying in texture, design and thickness. The book is a remarkable find for people who love the beauty and artistry of handmade and mould-made papers and special printing techniques. A copy of Specimens is in the collection of rare and unusual book at Lighthouse Books, ABAA.

George Bernard Shaw

From 1901 to 1949, Stevens-Nelson, and its predecessor, Japan Paper Company, had produced broadsides (that is, large sheets) as samples to be shown to potential customers. The sheets contained work designed by some of the best typographers and printers in America. The Specimens catalogue was an effort to expand that endeavor and to provide examples of fine printing using the papers contained in the company's repetoire. The book was intended for printers and print buyers who might handle projects that called for specialty papers.

Handmade papers are created literally by hand, or using a flat, hand-manipulated mould—a wooden frame covered with wire cloth. Mould made paper is manufactured on a small, mechanically driven, cylindrical mould. In both processes, the operator hand regulates the sheet-by-sheet manufacture. It is a slow and painstaking process, as art is often likely to be.

The process is used, the book notes in the introduction, not because it is "quaint or romantic, but simply because man has not been able to devise any other means of manufacture that will produce such superlative qualities." Indeed, mass-produced papers cannot achieve the look and feel of excellence, the strength and the quality of handmade papers.

At the time the book was produced, most of the specialty papers were produced in small mills in Europe or Japan. It is noted that one mill represented in the book was founded in 1268 "and is probably the oldest in western civilization." One French mill was founded in 1492, and one of the English mills had made currency papaer for more countires than any other mill in the world.

In addition to very beautiful papers, though, the book is a repository for amazing works of art. For here is a Picasso lithograph from the Curt Valentin Gallery in New York, an illustration of George Bernard Shaw by British expressionist painter Feliks Topolski, pen and ink illustrations of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the cover for a menu of an elegant Paris restaurant, and so much more.

Here, too, is an illustration by Italian child prodigy Romano Dazzi, heavy covers for serious reviews and public policy forums, and a simple but elegant program cover for the installation of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president of Columbia University in 1948.

The book contains a preface by Egbert Jacobson, director of the department of design at Container Corporation of America, certainly a major user of paper. Jacobson suggests that the real importance of the book lies "in its role of pacemaker for the art of printing." He contends that printers would do well to recognize the contribution artists make to the success of the art and business of printing.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

SUNDAY CONCERT: It is the birthday of German composer Christoph Bernhard (c. 1628), who literally sang for his supper as a child because his family was poor and his sailor father was away at sea. He studied in Rome as a young man and attracted the attention of Italian musicians with his compositions, including a Mass for 10 voices. He composed a piece for the funeral of his childhood teacher, Heinrich Schütz. Most of his work is sacred vocal music in German and Latin. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A glimpse into Manatee County history

Hamilton Disston

In 1881, wealthy Philadelphian Hamilton Disston made a remarkable Florida land deal that kick-started the state's sluggish economy. To help bail out the state's foundering Internal Improvement Fund, he bought four million acres for 25 cents an acre. By the end of the year, he sold half of it to a wealthy British politician who had railroad interests in Florida.

Disston brought in friends from Philadelphia and elsewhere as partners and set up various companies to develop the remaining land. All this activity spurred development throughout the state, and Manatee County was no exception. A remarkable Township Abstract Book from Manatee County is in the collection of rare and unusual items at Lighthouse Books, ABAA.

The large leatherbound book contains the handwritten records of real estate transactions from about 1882 to 1887 in Manatee County, which was originally much larger than it is today. Here is a treasure trove of entries with the names of many of the region's early pioneers, as well as other players in the development of Florida at the time.

Disston himself is listed, as are his wife and the land buying British politician, Sir Edward James Reed, an accomplished maritime architect for the Royal Navy well before he began investing in Florida's railroads. Reed, along with some Dutch and English investors, bought several small railroads and merged them into a larger transportation company. Within five years, though, Reed had gotten out of the railroad business.

Here, too, are entries for land purchases by some local pioneer luminaries, such as Ziba King, Robert C. Hendry and John W. Whidden.

Ziba King

King was a self-made cattle baron. He came to Tampa from Georgia after fighting as a private in the Georgia Infantry. He opened a dry goods store at Fort Ogden and prospered. He bought land and cattle, and became a banker, and a leading citizen. King was elected Justice of the Peace and served on the school board. Stetson Kennedy used to tell the story that King came to the rescue when Manatee County didn't have enough cash to pay its schoolteachers. King distributed enough gold to pay their salaries for six months.

Robert C. Hendry was another early pioneer in Manatee County. He and his wife Zilla Ann moved to Florida from Thomasville, Georgia. Their son, John Wright Hendry would become a Baptist preacher and cattleman. A relative, Francis A. Hendry, who had been a major in the Confederate States Army, also became a cattleman and helped establish beef markets in Cuba for Florida cattle. The county was named after Francis.

John C. Whidden fought as a mounted volunteer in the Third Seminole War. After the war, he became sheriff of Manatee county, and later tax collector. He also served as a lieutenant in the Confederate army. After the Civil War, Whidden returned to Manatee county and started growing his herd. He was active in the Baptist church and in state politics, serving in the State House and the Senate. Senator Whidden sponsored the bill to create DeSoto County from the larger Manatee County in 1887.

This volume offers peeks into other aspects of the region's history, including transactions in Arcadia, which became the county seat after the government was moved from Pine Level. H.E. Carlton, then-tax collector for the relatively new DeSoto County, is recorded several times selling property for unpaid taxes. Here, too, are references to the Kissimmee Land Company, one of Disston's many companies, and the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad, a rail and steamboat network that eventually became part of the Plant System.