Sunday, February 17, 2013

Footsteps of faith

 
 
 
 
 

Footsteps of faith was one of the first novels of Couperus that was translated to English (by Clara Bell).  It was also the book that caught the attention of no one less than  Oscar Wilde.  Do you want to read more about one the first novels written by Couperus? You can! Here!

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Shadows of beauty

 
 
 
 
 

Shadows of beauty is a book of 17 short stories written by Louis Couperus and published in 1912. Couperus was inspired by classical antiquity when he wrote it. We don't think this book has ever been translated into English - a pity but in any case now it's possible to read about it here!

Monday, February 11, 2013

Orchids, a collection of prose and poetry

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Orchids, a collection of prose and poetry was the second book Couperus published. It consisted, just as the previous book, A ribbon of poems, of verses. It was rather difficult for us to find something about this book in Dutch let alone English. So we searched our books and the internet, translated what we found in English and wrote an article about this book. We even read some verses ourselves! And after reading we had to remind ourselves that this book was written over more than 100 years ago!

Anyway, if you want to read our article about Orchids: this is the place!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

A ribbon of poems

 
 
 
 
 
 
Strange as it may seem for a much translated autor as Louis Couperus, in the English language we couldn't find much information about Couperus' debut as a writer! Well, fine, we wrote it ourselves and published it on the English Wikipedia as soon as we finished it! So now you can also read all about A ribbon of poems! Below the introduction, the rest can be found here.  We hope you enjoy!
 
 
A ribbon of poems (Dutch: Een lent van vaerzen) was the literary debut of Dutch writer Louis Couperus.[2] The collection of poetry A ribbon of poems (23 poems) received a good review by critic J.H. van Hall in the Dutch literary magazine "The Gids"; Van Hall compared Couperus' poetry with those written by Heinrich Heine, Everhardus Johannes Potgieter and Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft; Jan ten Brink, Couperus' teacher and later professor at the University of Leiden drew comparisons with Constantijn Huygens.[3] Not every critic however was that positive; Couperus' debut was also termed "contrived and effeminate".[4][5]
 
 




Saturday, February 9, 2013

Conrad Theodor van Deventer

 
 

Conrad Theodor van Deventer

 
 

 
Conrad Theodor van Deventer
 

Van Deventer is one of the interesting residents of Surinamestraat 20 and someone to be proud of too! He bought Surinamestraat 20 from John Ricus Couperus, father of Louis, in 1903. Van Deventer was an important person in the Dutch East Indies and a leading figure in the Dutch Ethical Policy Movement.  Do you want to know more?

Well, we've written an interesting article about him! You can read all about him here. To get us in the mood, below is a small part of his interesting life: 

In 1899 Van Deventer wrote a very influential article, called "Een Ereschuld" (a debt of honour) in the Dutch magazine "De Gids". In this article Van Deventer stated that the Netherlands had a dept of honor of nearly 190 million gulden opposite the Dutch East Indies and had to pay for this dept of honor.[31][32] When the Dutch East Indian budget was discussed in the House of Representatives a lot of attention was payed to Van Deventer's article, although not all members agreed with the content of the article.[33] Van Deventer was appointed member of the editorial board of "The Gids" as of January 1, 1901.[34]


Want to know more: here is more!


Friday, February 8, 2013

John Ricus Couperus



We've added the father of Louis Couperus to Wikipedia. To get a taste see below:


John Ricus Couperus (Jakarta,Indonesia 24 February 1816 - The Hague,Netherlands 13 October 1902) was a Dutch lawyer, member of the Council of Justice in Padang and member of the High Military Court of the Dutch East Indies. He was also the father of the Dutch writer Louis Couperus and knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion.[1]


Youth
Couperus was a son of Petrus Theodorus Couperus (1787-1823), a landdrost (yeoman) at the Preanger lands and landowner at Java, and Catharina Rica Cranssen (1795-1845). After the early death of his father his mother remarried general Carel Jan Riesz (1791-1865), who was komtur in the Military William Order and was active during the Battle of Waterloo and during military campaigns in the Dutch East Indies. When Couperus was three years old he and his brothers Henry (5 years old) and Piet (4 years old) were send to the Netherlands, accompanied by friends of their parents (October 20, 1819).[2] In Holland Couperus was placed under guardianship of a merchant in Amsterdam, called I.W. Bagman, who placed Couperus at the home of C.G. Merkus, a preacher of the Walloon church in Dordrecht. Later this family moved to Amsterdam. In 1826 Couperus was send to a boarding school in Noordwijk, later in Maarssen. In May 1829 his stepfather, who with his wife had returned to the Netherlands, was appointed colonel in the Dutch East Indian Army and moved with his wife back to Batavia. Couperus was send to the vicar Koorders and became a student at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam in 1832.[3]
Couperus was also active as a composer in his youth as well as later in his life; during his time at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam he visited the French opera, played the piano, sang and took lessons in harmony and composition. He also founded a music group, "Musicae Artis Sacrum". [3] In 1837 two of his compostions, Passy, Paroles de Béranger and Bitte zum Amor were published at C.J. Reinhold jr. (Amsterdam);[4] He also made compositions for family use only and wrote poetry, including but not limited to: Illusions d'un Étudiant and Sea Thoughts (written while on his way to the Dutch East Indies in 1837). Two musical compositions are preserved, Rêverie d’un Grandpère and the Influenza Walse.[5]

Futher reading? See here!

 
 
Surinamestraat 20 in The Hague
 

 
This house represents a major  part of the history of Dutch literature. Articles have been written about Couperus, students have written their thesis about his books, but the house where Couperus wrote one of his most important novels is for sale.  And the Dutch governement will not supply funds to buy it and keep this house as a true monument of the richness of Dutch culture. In this blog we, the Louis Couperus Foundation, will provide you with a series of sketches about Couperus' life and his importance to Dutch culture.
 

 
Surinamestraat 20 The Hague

 

We hope you enjoy reading as much as we do writing about Louis Couperus and his true value, not only for the Netherlands, but also for countries where his books were translated, such as England, Germany and the United States. As for a start we've complete rewritten Louis Couperus' article on Wikipedia - enjoy!