What a Mother Can Suffer

Hendrik ConscienceProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.1

Word count: 34K words
Chapters: 4

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.Wat eene moeder lijden kan by Hendrik ConscienceAuthor: Conscience, Hendrik, 1812-1883,Language: Dutch, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Feb 1, 2004

Editor's review

The title of this novel translates literally as "What a Mother Can Suffer." Written by the nineteenth-century Flemish Belgian author Hendrik Conscience, it is an important work of the Flemish literary revival. Conscience was known for depicting the daily lives and emotions of ordinary people in plain prose; this book centers on maternal love and family hardship, with intense yet restrained feeling and a clear sense of its era and moral concern. As a free Project Gutenberg eBook, it preserves the original Dutch text and serves as a primary source for understanding nineteenth-century Flemish literature and Belgian society. Readers may find it helpful to approach it against the backdrop of rising Flemish national consciousness and the emergence of realist literature, the better to appreciate the social concerns the author conveys through a story of family ethics. Being a public-domain electronic edition, the text has no modern annotations, so readers will need to supply background knowledge themselves.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Language learners of Dutch who wish to engage with nineteenth-century Flemish literary texts in the original
Readers in literary or historical studies researching Belgian literary history or the Flemish cultural revival
General readers interested in classic novels of maternal love and family ethics
E-book enthusiasts who enjoy public-domain electronic books and read across languages

Not a good fit for

Readers with no Dutch at all who are unwilling to read with the help of reference works
Readers of popular fiction expecting modern fast-paced plots and suspenseful twists
Beginners in foreign literature who need detailed annotations and introductions

Reading tips

Learn first about Conscience and the Flemish literary revival; the main text will read more smoothly with that background.
Read alongside the Dutch original and a reliable translation, using a dictionary for dialect or old spellings.
After each chapter, note the character relationships and emotional threads to follow how the theme of maternal love develops.
For coursework or research, consult histories of nineteenth-century Belgian society for context.

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

What language is this book written in, and is it hard to read?

The original is in Dutch, a nineteenth-century Flemish text whose spelling and vocabulary bear the marks of its time. Readers with some Dutch can read it directly; beginners should use a dictionary or a translation and first familiarize themselves with the author and literary background.

What is Conscience's place in literary history?

Hendrik Conscience was a major nineteenth-century writer in Flemish Belgian literature and is often regarded as one of the figures who advanced the Flemish literary revival. He mostly wrote about ordinary people's lives and family ethics, and his works show a clear realist bent and moral concern.

What are the features of this electronic edition?

This edition comes from Project Gutenberg and is a free public-domain e-book that preserves the original Dutch text, making it easy to read and search across devices. It generally includes no modern annotations or introduction, so readers must supply background material themselves.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Hendrik Conscience Author · Belgian · 1812–1883

Hendrik Conscience (1812–1883) was a Belgian Flemish-language novelist. Born in Antwerp, he took part in the Belgian Revolution of 1830. In 1838 his historical novel De Leeuw van Vlaanderen (The Lion of Flanders) founded the tradition of the Flemish novel, and he has been called "the man who taught his people to read." His works mostly draw on Flemish history and country life, blending historical romance with realistic sketches of ordinary existence. The library holds 21 of his works, including the German translation Der Löwe von Flandern, De Kerels van Vlaanderen, De Ziekte der Verbeelding, De baanwachter, The Amulet and The Poor Gentleman. Beyond the outline of his life, public information on his education and official career is limited, and none is supplied here.