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Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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ANNA LOUISA GEERTRUIDA BOSBOOM-TOUSSAINT (1812-1886), Dutch novelist, was born at Alkmaar in north Holland on the 16th of September 1812. Her father, named Toussaint, a local chemist of Huguenot descent, gave her a fair education, and at an early period of her career she developed a taste for historical research, fostered, perhaps, by a forced indoor life, the result of weak health. In 1851 she married the Dutch painter, Johannes Bosboom (1817-1891), and thereafter was known as Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint. Her first romance, Almagro, appeared in 1837, followed by the Graaf van Devonshire (The Earl of Devonshire ) in 1838; the Engelschen to Rome (The English at Rome ) in 1840, and Het Huis Lauernesse (The House of Lauernesse ) in 1841, an episode of the Reformation, translated into many European languages. These stories, mainly founded upon some of the most interesting epochs of Dutch history, betrayed a remarkable grasp of facts and situations, combined with an undoubted mastery over her mother tongue, though her style is sometimes involved, and not always faultless. Ten years (1840-1850) were mainly devoted to further studies, the result of which was revealed in 1851-1854, when her Leycester in Nederland (3 vols.), Vrouwen van het Leycestersche Tydperk (Women of Leicester's Epoch, 3 vols.), and Gideon Florensz (3 vols.) appeared, a series dealing with Robert Dudley's adventures in the Low Countries. After 1870 Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint abandoned historical romance for the modern society novel, but her Delftsche Wonderdokter (The Necromancer of Delft, 1871, 3 vols.) and Majoor Frans (1875, 3 vols.) did not command the success of her earlier works. Major Frank has been translated into English (1885). She died at the Hague on the 13th of April 1886. Her novels have been published there in a collected edition (1885-1888, 25 vols.).