Maarten Maartens, pen name of ''Jozua Marius Willem van der Poorten Schwartz'' (15 August 1858 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

– 3 August 1915 in

Doorn Doorn is a town in the municipality of Utrechtse Heuvelrug in the central Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht. History In a document from 885 to 896, the settlement is called "Thorhem", dwelling of Thor, the God of Thunder. Vikings quart ...

), was a Dutch writer, who wrote in English. He was quite well known at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, in both the UK and the US, but he was soon forgotten after his death.

Biography

The author was born on 15 August 1858 in

as Jozua Marius Willem Schwartz. His friends and relations called him Joost. His father August Ferdinand Carl Schwartz (1817–1870) was a vicar at the Scottish Missionary Church. Jozua's father was originally

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish, but had converted to Christianity. He became a clergyman with the special task of convincing other Jews to take the same step. In 1864 the family Schwartz moved to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, where Jozua's father started missionary work among the London Jews. Jozua owed his skill in the English language to this stay in England. When Jozua's father died in 1870, the family at first returned to

and then went to

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

in Germany. In 1877 Jozua Schwartz finished his grammar school education there.Gorissen, p. 38 He returned to the Netherlands, where he studied law at

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

. In 1882 he took his PhD Shortly afterwards he stood in for his instructor, Professor Jacobus Anthonie Fruin, who had fallen ill. When Fruin died in 1884, Jozua Schwartz applied for his position, but was not selected. In 1883 Jozua Schwartz had married his cousin Anna van Vollenhoven (1862–1924). She belonged to a rich Amsterdam family. Thanks to the money she brought into the marriage Jozua never had to look for a job. Both Jozua and Anna suffered from bad health. Jozua Schwartz later used their manifold experiences with doctors in his novels ''The Healers'' and ''The New Religion''. The couple travelled extensively, often to health resorts. When Anna became too weak to accompany him, Jozua mostly took his butler with him, and later his daughter Ada (1888–1944).Gorissen, p. 45 In 1884 Jozua Schwartz bought a rural estate in

, a small town in the central Netherlands. There he ordered a small castle built, partly after his own design. The castle was finished in 1903. He called it ''Zonheuvel'' ('Sun Hill'). In 1889 Jozua Schwartz got permission to add the name Van der Poorten (one of his great-grandmothers went by that name) to his own name. From then on he was called Jozua Marius Willem van der Poorten Schwartz. Van der Poorten Schwartz was deeply shocked when

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

broke out in 1914. He fell into a depression and his state of health deteriorated quickly. On 3 August 1915 he died. His wife Anna, who had always been even more frail than he was, outlived him for nine years. Their daughter Ada, who never married, rechristened Zonheuvel ''Het Maarten Maartenshuis'' ('The Maarten Maartens House') and turned it into a conference centre. Some rooms, among them the library, have been left in the state they were in when 'Maarten Maartens' was still living.

Literary career

Maarten Maartens wrote

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

plays Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

and

poems Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

. He started his literary career in the years 1885–1888. In those years he published two collections of poems and two

tragedies Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...

in verse, in English, his second language, and with a British publisher (three of them with Remington & Co). He still wrote under his own name (then J.M.W. Schwartz).Gorissen, p. 53 His British friend Reginald Stanley Faber suggested he could write

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

as well. Jozua Schwartz took the suggestion to heart. In 1889 he published two novels, both with Remington & Co and in English. The first one was a

detective story Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as specu ...

entitled ''The Black Box Murder''. With this book he was one of the first Dutch authors who wrote a detective story, albeit in English. The novel did not mention an author; the

title page The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title (publishing), title, subtitle, author, publisher, and edition, often artistically decorated. (A half title, by contrast, displays onl ...

said: 'The Black Box Murder by the Man Who Discovered the Murderer'. The second book, ''The Sin of Joost Avelingh'', was the first one he published under the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

of Maarten Maartens. He chose that name because it sounded very Dutch, was easy to remember and for non-Dutch speakers also easy to pronounce. ''The Sin of Joost Avelingh'' was set in the Netherlands and depicted Dutch society. The book was a big success and went through several editions. The next year D. Appleton & Company printed an American edition. The book was translated into German, Danish, Italian, French and Dutch. All subsequent books were published under the name of Maarten Maartens and in English, both in the UK and the US. In this way Maartens published fourteen novels and four books of short stories. Most books are set in the Netherlands. His best known novel is '' God's Fool'' (1892); he himself considered ''The Price of Lis Doris'' (1909) to be his best book. Most of his books were translated into German, a few of them also into Dutch. None of the Dutch editions were successful. In both the UK and the US Maarten Maartens was a popular writer, whose novels went through several reprints. He regularly visited the UK and was on friendly terms with British writers like

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

George Meredith George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but he gradually established a reputation as a novelist. ''The Ord ...

and

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

. Among his best friends were

J.M. Barrie Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, (; 9 May 1860 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several succe ...

Edmund Gosse Sir Edmund William Gosse (; 21 September 184916 May 1928) was an English poet, author and critic. He was strictly brought up in a small Protestant sect, the Plymouth Brethren, but broke away sharply from that faith. His account of his childhoo ...

and the publisher George Bentley. Bentley was in some respects Maartens's critical councillor. On receiving the first draft of ''The Greater Glory'' he advised Maartens to rewrite the second and third volumes, as Maartens too clearly showed his dislike of one of its characters, Count Rexelaer. Maartens followed Bentley's advice. Maartens's popularity in the UK is evident from the fact that he was elected an honorary member of the English Authors Club in 1891. In 1905 he received an honorary doctorship at the

University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Sc ...

, together with Thomas Hardy. Maarten Maartens in The Bookman - August-September 1895

After 1905 the sales figures of Maartens's books started to decline. He still was a welcome guest in the Anglo-Saxon world though. In 1907 he visited the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. He attended the opening of an enlargement to the

Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsbur ...

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and on 12 April delivered a speech there. A few days later, on 15 April, he spoke at the New York Peace Congress, organised by

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

. Maartens had met Carnegie during his visits to the UK. Maartens was even received by President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

. In 1914 the collected works of Maarten Maartens were published with Constable & Co. in

. A somewhat less complete edition was published with

Tauchnitz Tauchnitz was the name of a family of German printers and publishers. They published English language literature for distribution on the European continent outside Great Britain, including initial serial publications of novels by Charles Dickens. ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

in the series 'Tauchnitz Collection of British and American Authors' (in English!). D. Appleton & Company, his American publisher, refused to print an American edition. Maartens's books did not sell anymore.Breuls, p. 9 In the same year, 1914, Maarten Maartens published his only work in Dutch: a bundle of poems under the nom de plume of Joan van den Heuvel ('John of the Hill', a pun on 'Zonheuvel', the name of his castle). After the outbreak of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and Maartens's death in 1915 the publishers lost interest in his work and he fell into oblivion. In 1930 though his daughter Ada van der Poorten Schwartz, who managed his literary estate, succeeded in having a selection of his

letters Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...

published. Because he wrote all his works – one collection of poems excepted – in English, he was hardly known in his own country, the Netherlands. Among his compatriots, who had heard of him, but never read him, a rumour spread that his novels were romans à clef and meant to ridicule the Netherlands. Maartens was annoyed by this rumour, as the preface to ''The Greater Glory'' (1894) clearly shows: :'Holland is a small country, and it is difficult to step out in it without treading on somebody’s toes. I therefore wish to declare, once for all, and most emphatically, that my books contain no allusions, covert or overt, to any real persons, living or dead. I am aware that great masters of fiction have thought fit to work from models; that method must therefore possess its advantages: it is not mine.' But it was in the Netherlands where, after his death, some attempts were made to renew interest in his works. Since 1930 two novels and two short story books have been published in Dutch translations. None of them was successful, most likely because Maartens had remained unknown and unpopular in the Netherlands, while times had changed and readers with them. On 26 September 2015, in memory of Maarten Maartens' passing a hundred years ago, a symposium was held in the Maarten Maartens House in Doorn, The Netherlands, commemorating his writings and writer's life. This was accompanied by a number of activities, including a concert event in the Maartens Church in Doorn with singing and piano accompaniment based on Maartens' texts, directed by Jurriaan Röntgen, grandson of the well-known German-Dutch composer, Julian Röntgen, and a member of the Schwartz family. The Dutch translation of God's Fool was reprinted and Bouwe Postmus presented his book, "At Home and Abroad; Stories of Love," a collection of Maarten's short stories published by the author in well-known magazines. For that same occasion, his nephew, John Schwartz, published his book, "Maarten Maartens Rediscovered - The Most Popular Dutch Author Abroad," which contains summarizations of Maartens' thirteen novels, with quotations from Maartens' writing. A year later, in 2016, Schwartz published the second part, "Maarten Maartens Rediscovered - His Best Short Stories," a summarization with quotations of thirty-two short stories selected from Maartens' four published volumes of short stories, as well as The Black Box Murder, Maartens' first self-published detective.

Bibliography

Poetry (in English)

*''The Morning of a Love, and Other Poems'', Remington & Co, London, 1885 *''A Sheaf of Sonnets'', Remington & Co, London, 1888

Poetry (in Dutch)

*''Gedichten'' ('Poems'), P.N. van Kampen & Zoon, Amsterdam, 1914

Novels

*''The Black Box Murder'', Remington & Co, London, 1889 *''The Sin of Joost Avelingh: A Dutch Story'', Remington & Co, London, 1889; D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1890 *''An Old Maid's Love: A Dutch Tale Told in English'', Richard Bentley & Son, London;

Harper & Brothers Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

, New York, 1891 *''A Question of Taste: A Novel'',

William Heinemann William Henry Heinemann (18 May 1863 – 5 October 1920) was an English publisher of Jewish descent and the founder of the Heinemann publishing house in London. Early life On 18 May 1863, Heinemann was born in Surbiton, Surrey, England. Heine ...

, London, 1891 *'' God's Fool: A Koopstad Story'', Richard Bentley & Son, London; D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1892 *''The Greater Glory: A Story of High Life'', Richard Bentley & Son, London; D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1894 *''My Lady Nobody: A Novel'', Richard Bentley & Son, London; Harper & Brothers, New York, 1895 *''Her Memory'', Macmillan & Co., London; D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1898 *''Dorothea: A Story of the Pure in Heart'', Constable & Co., London; D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1904 *''The Healers'', Constable & Co., London; D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1906 *''The New Religion'', Methuen & Co., London; D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1907 *''The Price of Lis Doris'', D. Appleton & Company, New York; Methuen & Co., London, 1909 *''Harmen Pols, Peasant'', Methuen & Co., London; John Lane Company, New York, 1910 *''Eve: An Incident of Paradise Regained'', Constable & Co., London, 1912

Short Stories

*''Some Women I Have Known'', William Heinemann, London; D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1901 *''My Poor Relations: Stories of Dutch Peasant Life'', Constable & Co., London; D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1905 *''The Woman's Victory'', Constable & Co., London, 1906 *''Brothers All: More Stories of Dutch Peasant Life'', Methuen & Co., London, 1909 *''Six Short Stories'', Selected by Dr W. van Maanen, J.M. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, �1930

Plays

*''Julian: A Tragedy'', Remington & Co, London, 1886 *''Nivalis: A Tragedy in Five Acts'', Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., London, 1886

Letters

*''The Letters of Maarten Maartens'', Constable & Co., London, 1930

About Maarten Maartens

*Willem van Maanen, ''Maarten Maartens, Poet and Novelist'', doctoral dissertation, Noordhoff, Groningen, 1928 *Sir

Arthur Quiller-Couch Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (; 21 November 186312 May 1944) was a British writer who published using the pseudonym Q. Although a prolific novelist, he is remembered mainly for the monumental publication '' The Oxford Book of English Verse ...

, Preface to ''The Letters of Maarten Maartens'', Constable & Co., London, 1930 *Norreys Jephson O’Conor, "A Memoir", in: ''The Letters of Maarten Maartens'', Constable & Co., London, 1930 *

Wim Zaal Willem Philippe Maria "Wim" Zaal (14 August 1935, Amsterdam - 11 October 2021, Muiden) was a Dutch journalist, essayist, translator and literary critic. He was literary editor of ''Elsevier'' for years. He has edited anthologies from the works of m ...

, ''Nooit van gehoord: Stiefkinderen van de Nederlandse beschaving'', Ambo, Utrecht, 1969 and

De Arbeiderspers De Arbeiderspers is a Dutch publishing company, started as a socialist enterprise. The name means 'The Workers' Press'. History The company was started in 1929 as a combination of the publishing firm N.V. Ontwikkeling and the Dutch Social Dem ...

, Amsterdam, 1974 (essays about Maarten Maartens a.o., in Dutch) *Theo Daselaar, ''The Sad Successful Literary Life of Maarten Maartens'', Master's thesis 1984 *Th.M. Gorissen, ''Maarten Maartens en het Maarten Maartenshuis'', Stichting Maarten Maartens, Doorn, 1992 (in Dutch) *Hendrik Breuls, ''A Comparative Evaluation of Selected Prose by Maarten Maartens'', doctoral dissertation

Technische Universität Dresden TU Dresden (for german: Technische Universität Dresden, abbreviated as TUD and often wrongly translated as "Dresden University of Technology") is a public research university, the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, th ...

, 2005

Notes

External links

Biography and bibliography of Maarten Maartens
(in Dutch)

(in Dutch)
Breuls’s dissertation (archived)
* Archival material at * {{DEFAULTSORT:Maartens, Maarten 1858 births 1915 deaths Dutch male poets Writers from Amsterdam