Today we went to the booksale of the Durham Library, always a nice way to spend a Saturday morning.

Last year I bought a beautiful edition of Rip van Winkle; this year I found another gorgeous Dutch-American book: Tales Told in Holland. Of course, with sites like Abebooks.com and Amazon you can order any book you like on-line, but there is something very satisfying about browsing big piles of books and finding a hidden gem like this.

Published in Chicago, this book is a collection of Dutch stories and nursery rhymes. Stories include Hugo de Groot’s escape in a chest with books and the Lady of Stavoren, as well as many others that I didn’t know. It is really fun to see Dutch children’s rhymes translated into English, including Sinterklaas songs.

The introduction starts like this:

“Tales Told in Holland consists chiefly of stories with a few translations from the greatest Dutch poets and a few old Dutch nursery rhymes, naive and nonsensical as our English rhymes, and contrasting interestingly with the far more sophisticated rhymes of the French. ”

My copy is a first edition from 1926 and thus over 85 years old. It is in good shape for its age and I’m really happy with it.