Otto's mother, Baroness Matilda, has died in premature labour, brought on by the sight of the Baron's battle wounds, prompting Conrad to take his newborn son to be raised in a nearby monastery.

When Otto reaches the age of eleven his father reclaims him from the gentle monks, taking him back to live in Castle Drachenhausen, ("Dragons' House", in German) the ancestral mountaintop fortress from which this Baron launches his predatory attacks on the countryside.

Shortly thereafter, Baron Conrad is summoned to the Imperial Court by the Emperor himself, and takes the vast majority of his men-at-arms with him as an impressive escort- but leaves Castle Drachenhausen practically undefended as a result.

With a final burst of strength he wrestles the equally heavily-armoured Baron Henry from his horse, and clutching him, hurls both himself and his foe into the river to drown so that his son can escape.

After its release the New York Times gave the book's illustrations a mixed review:[2] The illustrations made by Mr. Howard Pyle for his medieval tale Otto of the Silver Hand are of varied merit, sometimes alive with action, at others dull and even badly drawn and composed... Mr. Pyle gets something of the rudeness of ancient woodcuts into his work, though perhaps the rugged note is exaggerated.

The volume is one of the prettiest issued by Charles Scribner's Sons for the holidays, the cover emblazoned with the shield bearing a hand argent on gules.