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Summaries
Ignaz Matthey, Decency legislation and porn trade around 1900. The lawsuits against the publishers Bergé & Versteeg and the trio Kikkert-Reinders-Lemoine
Until 1911 the Dutch penal law didn't prohibit the publishing and distribution of pornographic books. Due to this permissiveness the Netherlands got involved in the international porn trade. François van Combrugge, Augustin Brancart and other emigrés from Brussels even made Amsterdam the capital of the European porn publishing for a while (c. 1885-1894). The Dutch and foreign traders in the Netherlands mailed their books and pictures mainly to customers in France, Germany and Great Britain. The Dutch domestic market for hardcore porn was small.
Because the distribution of pornographic books was legal Dutch public prosecutors decided to fight porn traders by accusing them of selling indecent leaflets (‘vliegende blaadjes’), a crime according to the Code Pénal of 1811 and the new penal law that came into force in 1886. Most judges approved this charge, although it was at variance with the letter and spirit of the law.
Around the turn of the century the Rotterdam based firm J. Bergé was the most important Dutch publisher of erotic novels and a major player in the international porn market. In 1894 its founder, Jan Bergé, was sentenced to a month imprisonment. Several legal actions were taken against his son-in-law and successor Jacobus Versteeg. In 1911 Versteeg moved his stock to Paris. He went bankrupt a year later.
In 1898 the Amsterdam bookseller Feije Kikkert was for the first time suspected of selling porn, but he got away with it. Kikkert advertised in French and German salty magazines such as Frou-Frou, Gil Blas, Der Floh and Wiener Caricaturen. His ads in Der Floh attracted the attention of a German anti-porn activist, who placed in 1900 some orders to collect evidence against the Dutchman. In the ensuing lawsuit before a court at Amsterdam Kikkert had a lucky escape, whereupon he continued his activities. Not until 1912 his guilt could be proved by leading him into a trap that was set in cooperation with German authorities. Kikkert collaborated with a colleague bookseller, Herman Reinders, and the photographer Carl Lemoine. Reinders was convicted in 1909 and Lemoine in 1912, at the same time as Kikkert. A long and at times comical hunt for three partners in crime had come to an end.
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Louis Saalmink, To peddle booklets from door to door
In 1842 a man called Jan Delhaas was taken into custody in the small Dutch town of Gorinchem together with his wife and daughter on the suspicion of being beggars. They had to spend almost half a year in prison before the court decided
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that they had tried to make a living by selling a booklet. This booklet contained two poems of the then famous Dutch poet Elias Annes Borger (1784-1820) who was of humble descent but at a youthful age became professor at Leyden University. The two poems are about the death of his first wife and of his second wife and their child respectively. Mr. Delhaas claimed that he had been a prosperous citizen but by ill-fortune had been forced to sell this booklet to his former equals. In due course the booklet was sold by other pedlars as well, whereas Delhaas tried to sell different booklets of or about Borger. For decades Borger's Complete poems (1836) were edited in several more or less expensive editions at the same time that his two most famous poems were sold along the streets.
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Janneke Weijermars, A difficult case. Integration, nation building and the book trade in the Low Countries, 1815-1830
Between 1815 and 1830 King William i pursued a very intense literary integration policy in the Low Countries, and tried to weld together the Northern and the Southern Netherlands on a cultural level. Therefore, he introduced Dutch as the official language for the whole country. This article studies the consequences of this cultural nation-building and government-based cultural policy for authors, publishers, printers and booksellers. Which obstacles they faced while operating across the internal border? What were the successes and possibilities of the book business in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands?
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Toos Streng, On supply and demand. Readers and buyers of novels in the Netherlands, 1790-1899
Specialists on Dutch history of books and literature disagree on the prices, the readers and buyers and even the amount of novels in the nineteenth century. A quantitative analysis of the novels appearing in the Netherlands between 1790-1899 offers at least some clear answers. Ever since 1837 the novel was what book historian Franco Moretti called ‘a necessity of life’. From that year the supply of novels was sufficient to fulfil the need of the average reader, at the expense of other genres. However, a reader is not by definition a buyer. Until 1864, novels were too expensive for the individual consumer, and reading societies and commercial circulating libraries dominated the market. As of the middle of the sixties, the purchasing power of the middle class was high enough to enable them to buy novels. This fundamental change on the demand side is reflected on the supply side: we observe a growing differentiation - made possible by technical developments - in execution, book sizes and prices and the increasing importance of reprints, like collected works. A discussion of the different editions of Jacob van Lennep's novels illustrates this growing differentiation.
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Richard Velthuizen, The conquest reports: public comments and propaganda in the English and Dutch pamphlet literature review the Glorious Revolution 1688-1689
The Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 was heavily debated in the pamphlet literature in both England and the Dutch Republic. In England a fierce debate between the adherents of William iii and James ii started after William had set foot in Brixham. In the Dutch Republic, William was hailed as the New Messiah, saving the European protestant faith from the Roman-catholic threat emanating from James ii and his brother in arms as well as religion, Louis xiv of France. The Knuttel-collection, presiding in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague, shows that prior to Williams invasion pro-James pamphlets were imported in the Republic to fuel the debate on the abdication of the Test Acts and Penal Laws, which provided for the emancipation of Catholic citizens into English magistracy. After
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the invasion, the flow of Jacobite pamphlets ceased to exist. The English pamphlets that did reach the Dutch market in 1689, bore the seal of approval from William propagandists. Consequently, the Dutch public opinion was completely homogeneous in its positive reception on Williams invasion. Moreover, the lack of Jacobite pamphlets led Dutch citizens to believe that William was welcomed in England without any sign of resistance during his march on London and after his coronation. The intense debates in the Convention Parliament, the rise of a stubborn Jacobite movement, and the need for a search-and-destroy campaign on Jacobite propaganda, show that this perception was a complete misrepresentation of the actual developments in England. This article tries to provide some insight in the machinations of propaganda that were set in place prior, during and after the Glorious Revolution. Following his invasion, William assigned Gilbert Burnet as his chief of propaganda Burnet created a network of preachers and pamphleteers, thereby depending on an old boys network and on his well maintained contacts with printers and booksellers in the Netherlands. Once in power, the new administration tried to seize control on the infrastructure in the market for illicit literature, and prevented any Jacobite propaganda from reaching the continent. Given the complete lack of opposition in the remnant pamphlets in the Knuttel-collection, Burnets approach proved to be successful.
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Ulrike Valeria Fuss, Van Antwerpen naar Peru. Boeken uit de Zuidelijke Nederlanden in het zestiende-eeuwse vicekoninkrijk
Het voorliggende artikel biedt een analyse van de herkomst van het drukwerk dat in de zestiende eeuw in het vicekoninkrijk Peru circuleerde en besteedt in het bijzonder aandacht aan de rol van Antwerpen als productiecentrum ervan. De hypothesen over de oorsprong en de aard van de ingevoerde drukken die gebaseerd zijn op oudere analyses van het bronnenmateriaal uit het Archivo General de Indias in Sevilla worden daarbij geconfronteerd met nieuwe inzichten die steunen op de resultaten van een steekproef op basis van catalogi van verschillende bibliotheken in het voormalige vicekoninkrijk. Het oudere onderzoek steunde voornamelijk op de publicaties van Teodoro Hampe Martínez en Carlos Alberto González Sánchez. De informatie uit de inventarissen van Peruaanse, Chileense en Boliviaanse bibliotheken is virtueel verkregen (via internet en cd-rom) en biedt perspectieven voor verder onderzoek. De resultaten bevestigen het belang van Plantijn, Steelsius, Nutius en Bellerus voor de export vanuit Antwerpen, maar tonen voor wat de statistische gegevens betreft een verschuiving aan van de Spaanse drukkerscentra naar Parijs en Rome als productiecentra van boeken voor het vicekoninkrijk. De resultaten geven een overzicht van de ‘marktaandelen’ per genre voor de Europese drukkerssteden die zich in de Zuid-Amerikaanse catalogi weerspiegelen. Het thematische zwaartepunt ligt op boeken met religie en devotie als onderwerp, dan wel juridische boeken. Antwerpen exporteerde procentueel meer religieuze boeken dan om het even welke andere Europese stad, maar ook het aandeel van wetenschappelijke boeken (geografie en andere natuurwetenschappen) uit Antwerpen ligt procentueel hoger dan dat van de meeste andere landen.
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Kristof Selleslach, The Torad repertory of ornaments at work. Some additions and rectifications of the publisher's list of Christopher plantin
For ages typographical ornaments were fulfilling a key function in the identification of the right printer of anonymous imprints. The digital age set up revolutionary facilities to make typographical ornaments available. Several automated initiatives were brought out in Europe. In 2008 the Plantin-Moretus Museum started an innovative project to collect and make available all typographical ornaments used by Antwerp printers in a database named Torad (Repertory of Typographical Ornaments of Antwerp Printers 1541-1600). By the end of 2010 the Torad repertory contains more than 4,100 unique typographical ornaments, mainly woodcut initials. The most innovative and promising feature of Torad is
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the recording of the use of the ornaments. Who printed which ornament in which edition? The repertory gives an overview of the printing history of each ornament. You can track a single ornament through decades of use by successive printers. The applications in the broader book-historical research are numerous. Initially Torad is designed as an appropriate tool for bibliographical detection. The repertory is able to unveil the hidden printer of anonymous editions. With the help of Torad, it is easy to identify the printer of editions whose imprint mentions only the publisher. The repertory is especially useful to round up and rectify the publisher's list of the prominent Antwerp printer Christopher Plantin (c. 1520-1589). Due to the Museum's largest collection worldwide of Plantin imprints, the repertory contains a substantial amount of Plantinian ornaments. The contribution demonstrates the added value of the repertory in the adjustment of publisher's lists by a handful of case studies. I was able to superadd a number of thus far unattributed Plantin imprints to the intensely discussed publisher's list of Christopher Plantin. With the help of the repertory I have rectified the inaccurate attribution of a few Plantin imprints. The research applications of Torad extend much more widely than just the identification of printers. The repertory helps us understanding how sixteenth-century printers embellish their books with woodcut initials. The database can reply to a variety of questions concerning the design and use of ornamental initials.
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Suzan Folkerts, Too difficult for laymen? On the readers of Middle Dutch Bible translations
This article summarizes the first results of the erc Starting Grant project ‘Holy writ and lay readers. A social history of vernacular Bible translations in the late Middle Ages’, which is executed at the University of Groningen. The central question is, if and how vernacular Bible manuscripts were used by lay readers in the period before the Reformation. No less than 430 medieval manuscripts contain (fragments of) Middle Dutch Bible translations. Table 1 shows the spread of these manuscripts: of 218 manuscripts with a known provenance, 55% belonged to religious institutions, 21% to religious persons, and 24% to lay persons. 69% was owned by female readers, and 28% by male readers.
In order to draw conclusions on the use of Bible translations, manuscripts with the Northern Dutch translation of the New Testament were studied in detail. Almost all contain reading lists of pericopes, the lessons from the gospels and epistles that were read during the liturgical year. Additions and corrections proof that the lists were actually used in a (para)liturgical way. Combining data on the lay out of the manuscripts and data about their owners and users brought to light a remarkable phenomenon: manuscripts that were designed as lectionaries (with pericopes placed in the order of the liturgical year) were almost exclusively owned and used by canonesses regular, who followed the daily office. Manuscripts with complete books of the New Testament in their biblical order were owned and used by tertiaries and Beguines, strictly speaking lay women, and secular lay persons. These manuscripts often contain tools with which the reader could study the Bible: a concordance system in the gospels, based on the canones of Eusebius, and glosses. Thus lay people owned Bibles that were designed to be studied.
Lay persons were stimulated to study the Bible, especially in the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, it is still generally assumed that lay people in the Middle Ages had no access to the Bible. This is caused by research traditions that were shaped by the ‘Protestant paradigm’ (A. Gow). However, vernacular Bibles were not forbidden (only in specific cases like the waldensian and cathar movements). Some clerics disapproved of lay people reading ‘dark’ books like the prophets and the Apocalyps, but they did circulate. In his prologues, the translator of this history Bible of 1360 expressed his concerns about the negative opinions of these clerics, and yet he translated the ‘dark’ books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations at the request of the layman Jan Taye. One scribe explicitly wrote that he refused to copy these books, but this was just his opinion. They were transmitted in a fifteenth-century manuscript that was in the possession of lay persons, Volquijn vander Niederhorst and his wife, so lay people had access to these ‘dark’ Bible books. The practice of Bible reading by lay people was more fluid than clerics' opinions suggest.
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Arnold Lubbers, “Weinig meer dan hun naam”... New insights on early nineteenth-century Northern Dutch reading clubs
Since about 1980 book clubs have incidentally been studied by Dutch scholars. Their results featured in pioneering articles that followed international trends in the research of literary institutions, of which was known they were prolific between 1750 and 1900. Unfortunately, almost always these scholars were limited in their research because of the scarcity of archival material. In articles or passages in books researchers commented on these limitations and concluded that of nearly all Dutch book clubs not much more remained than their name.
A couple of decades later exploratory research, initiated in the wake of renewed interest in literary institutions of the past, shows that ongoing indexation and improved online accessibility of information on relevant archival material provide for an alternative conclusion. More documents are available for study than previous researchers thought existed. This in turn presents current researchers with the option of contrasting diverging book clubs and developing a comparative view on this phenomenon. In this article, the author presents the first integrated analysis of combined laws and regulations of dozens of book clubs from the Netherlands that were active between 1815 and 1830.
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Meriel Benjamins, Marleen Nagtegaal, Sandra van Voorst, The secret of the reader. Reading and the ‘Drentse literatuurclubs’
In contemporary literature, reading groups are becoming increasingly important. In 2002 it was estimated there were between two- and three-thousand official reading groups and an unknown number of unofficial groups which operate independently of libraries in the provinces. An organization of special significance in this context is Stichting Literatuurclubs Drenthe (sld) in which approximately two-and-a-half thousand readers are unified. The sld is a professional organization that provides its readers not only with books but also with literary analyses and lectures. Despite the increasing number and importance of reading groups, little research has been done on the qualitative aspects of their reading experience. A lot of prejudice exists against both reading groups and the way in which they read and discuss literature: they are accused of being casual readers, reading only for pleasure.
This article explores ways of reading as practiced in reading groups connected to the sld. First, an overview of the history and policy of reading groups in Drenthe is offered in order to clarify their ideas about literature and their selection procedures. Moreover, using a tool developed by Theo Witte, this article will provide insight into both the ways of reading and the content of discussions in reading groups, as well as the implicit poetics of the sld. On top of this, a survey sheds new light on the views on literature held by the participants of reading groups themselves.
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