Een verlaten post

Woude, Johanna van, 1853-1904Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 159K words
Chapters: 16

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Een verlaten post by Johanna van WoudeAuthor: Woude, Johanna van, 1853-1904,Language: Dutch, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Dec 17, 2008

Editor's review

The author of this work, Johanna van Woude (1853–1904), was one of the representative writers of nineteenth-century Dutch popular literature. Written in Dutch and relatively short, the book is well suited as a first step into reading original Dutch texts. Its value lies not in intricate plotting but in its delicate observation of bourgeois life and emotional structures of the time: letters, everyday trivialities, and personal changes intertwine to form a cross-section of an era. For intermediate learners of Dutch, the sentence structures are fairly regular and the vocabulary close to daily life, making it excellent material for training language intuition; for readers studying nineteenth-century Dutch literature, it offers a first-hand sample of popular literature that can be read alongside works by better-known contemporaries. The public-domain electronic edition provided by Project Gutenberg is easy to search and read on the go. It is recommended to read it through once and then return to take language notes, rather than expecting strong dramatic conflict.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Intermediate language learners of Dutch who wish to start with short original texts
Readers studying nineteenth-century Dutch popular literature and bourgeois life
Readers who enjoy leisurely paced classical novels focused on everyday emotions

Not a good fit for

General readers who only read Chinese translations and do not intend to engage with the original Dutch text
Readers expecting strong plot, suspenseful twists, or fast-paced narrative
Those with little interest in nineteenth-century European popular literature

Reading tips

First read through to grasp the characters and plot, then go through again paragraph by paragraph marking new words and sentence patterns.
Read with a Dutch dictionary or bilingual reference book; for long sentences, first identify the subject–predicate structure.
After each chapter, retell the gist in your own words to check comprehension and consolidate vocabulary.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for someone learning Dutch from scratch?

It is not recommended as a beginner's textbook. The original is nineteenth-century Dutch, and its sentence patterns and word choices carry period features; beginners may struggle with long sentences and outdated expressions. A safer approach is to complete basic grammar and common vocabulary study first, then use this book as your first complete original text.

What are the usage features of the Gutenberg e-book edition?

Project Gutenberg provides a public-domain electronic text that is freely available and convenient for full-text searching, copying, and note-taking on a computer or e-reader. The layout is mainly plain text and lacks the annotations and introductions of modern publications, so readers need to look up and supplement historical background themselves.

Do I need to know Dutch literary history before reading this book?

Not necessarily. The story is self-contained and can be read directly. However, if you want to understand its place in the context of popular literature, a brief look at the nineteenth-century Dutch bourgeois reading market and a comparison with contemporary works will make the experience more complete.

Comments

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About the author

Woude, Johanna van, 1853-1904 Author · Dutch · 1853–1904

Johanna van Woude (1853–1904) was a Dutch novelist. Public information about her life is limited, and what can be confirmed concerns mainly her identity as a writer and the nature of her work. She is known for novels that draw on family and social life, focusing on everyday human relations and moral questions in a realistic, finely observed style. Her representative work, Een verlaten post, reflects this approach, unfolding its narrative around the circumstances of its characters and presenting family ties and emotional tensions in late nineteenth-century Dutch social life. One of her works is currently held in this collection. Overall, her writing centres on family and social themes, is plain in style, and pays close attention to character and the details of daily life, giving her a place in Dutch fiction of her time.