84 Facts About Louis Couperus

Louis Marie-Anne Couperus was a Dutch novelist and poet.

Louis Couperus's oeuvre contains a wide variety of genres: lyric poetry, psychological and historical novels, novellas, short stories, fairy tales, feuilletons and sketches.

Louis Marie-Anne Couperus was born on 10 June 1863 at Mauritskade 11 in The Hague, Netherlands, into a long-established, Indo family of the colonial landed gentry of the Dutch East Indies.

Louis Couperus was the eleventh and youngest child of John Ricus Couperus, a prominent colonial administrator, lawyer and landheer or lord of the private domain of Tjikopo in Java, and Catharina Geertruida Reynst.

Louis Couperus was baptized on 19 July 1863 in the Eglise wallonne in The Hague.

When Louis Couperus reached the age of five, his youngest sister, Trudy, was twelve years old and his youngest brother, Frans, eleven.

On 6 November 1872 the Louis Couperus family left home, travelled by train to Den Helder and embarked on the steamboat Prins Hendrik, which would bring them back to the Dutch East Indies.

At the HBS Louis Couperus met his later friend Frans Netscher; during this period of his life, he read the novels written by Emile Zola and Ouida.

Virginie la Chapelle wrote the music, and Louis Couperus provided the lyrics for.

In January 1885 Louis Couperus had already written one of his early poems, called Kleopatra.

In 1882, Louis Couperus started reading Petrarch and had the intention to write a novel about him, which was never realized, although he did publish the novella, loosely inspired by Plutarch.

When Couperus just had finished his novella Een middag bij Vespaziano, he visited Johannes Bosboom and his wife Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint, whose works Couperus greatly admired.

Louis Couperus let Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint read his novella, which she found very good.

In 1883 Louis Couperus started writing Laura; this novella was published in parts in De Gids in 1883 and 1884.

In 1883 Louis Couperus saw Sarah Bernhardt performing in The Hague, but was more impressed by her dresses than her performance itself.

The next year, John Ricus Couperus, father of Louis Couperus, sold his family estate "Tjicoppo", located in the Dutch East Indies and gave order to build a house at the Surinamestraat 20, The Hague.

Louis Couperus passed his exam on 6 December 1886 and received his certificate, which allowed him to teach at secondary schools.

Shortly before Louis Couperus wrote, he had read War and Peace and Anna Karenina, written by Leo Tolstoy.

Meanwhile, Louis Couperus wrote a novella called Een ster, which was published in "Nederland" and made a journey to Sweden.

Louis Couperus met a new friend, writer Maurits Wagenvoort, who invited Louis Couperus and painter George Hendrik Breitner to his home.

Louis Couperus finished his next novel, Noodlot in May 1890; this novel was then published in De Gids.

Louis Couperus now started reading Paul Bourget's novel Un coeur de femme, which inspired him during the writing of his novella Extaze.

Veen, asking permission to publish Noodlot, which offer Louis Couperus rejected because this book was supposed to be published by Elsevier.

When his uncle Guillaume Louis Baud died, Couperus went back to The Hague to attend the funeral.

Elisabeth Louis Couperus-Baud translated Wilde's novel into Dutch: Het portret van Dorian Gray.

Gerrit Jager, a play writer, wrote a theatre performance of Noodlot; it was performed in 1892 by the Rotterdam theatre company, and the then-famous Dutch actor Willem Royaards, who was an acquaintance of Louis Couperus, played one of the leading characters.

Louis Couperus wrote about how she rested on her deathbed in his novel Metamorfoze.

In 1894 Louis Couperus joined the editorial board of De Gids; other members were Geertrudus Cornelis Willem Byvanck, Jacob Nicolaas van Hall, Anton Gerard van Hamel, Ambrosius Hubrecht and Pieter Cort van der Linden.

In Florence they stayed in a pension close to the Santa Maria Novella; here Louis Couperus wrote in November 1893 a sketch, Annonciatie, a literary description of the painting of the same name by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi in the Uffizi gallery.

In February 1894 Louis Couperus travelled to Naples and Athens, and then returned to Florence, where he visited Ouida.

Louis Couperus now started working on what was to become Wereldvrede and wrote a translation of Flaubert's La Tentation de Saint Antoine.

Apart from that Lodewijk van Deyssel wrote a review in which he asked Louis Couperus to get lost, and Louis Couperus himself ended his editorship at De Gids.

The next city they visited was Rome, where Louis Couperus would receive a number of bad reviews of his book Wereldvrede.

In 1896 Hoge troeven was published with a book cover designed by Hendrik Petrus Berlage, and in April 1896 Louis Couperus started writing Metamorfoze.

In 1897 Louis Couperus finished writing Metamorfoze, which was to be published in De Gids.

Meanwhile, Elisabeth Louis Couperus-Baud translated Olive Schreiner's Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland.

In February 1898 Louis Couperus travelled to Berlin, where he visited Else Otten, the German translator of his books and who would translate Psyche into German.

Louis Couperus met Edmund Gosse, who had written a foreword to Footsteps of Fate in 1891, and English painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who was a brother-in-law of Gosse.

Many of the details about the life and works of a resident in the Dutch East Indies Louis Couperus derived from his brother-in-law De la Valette.

Louis Couperus characterized The Hidden Force as: The Hidden Force gives back especially the enmity of the mysterious Javanese soul and atmosphere, fighting against the Dutch conqueror.

Meanwhile, Louis Couperus received a letter from his friend Johan Hendrik Ram, in which Ram wrote that he and lieutenant Lodewijk Thomson were about to travel to South Africa to follow the course of the Boer Wars as military diplomats.

Meanwhile, Louis Couperus started to work on his new novels Babel and De boeken der kleine zielen.

In October 1902 Louis Couperus' father died at the age of 86.

Veen, in which he complained that Louis Couperus' books did not sell.

In May 1903 Louis Couperus published Dionyzos-studien in Groot Nederland, in which Louis Couperus paid tribute to classical antiquity and especially to the god Dionysus.

Veen, saying that Louis Couperus' books did not sell well, and so Louis Couperus wrote a farewell letter to Veen in which he told Veen this was the end of their business relationship.

From this period on Louis Couperus claimed that the days of novels were counted and that short stories were the novels of the future.

In December 1910 Louis Couperus wrote in his sketch Melancholieen about the death of his father, mother, sister and brother:.

In Rome Louis Couperus collected and rearranged some of his serials, which he intended to publish in a book, Schimmen van schoonheid.

Veen were unable to agree on the payment of Louis Couperus, Louis Couperus then published Schimmen van schoonheid and Antiek Toerisme with publisher Van Holkema en Warendorf.

In Rome Louis Couperus visited Museo Barracco di Scultura Antica, San Saba, the Villa Madama and the Colosseum.

Louis Couperus paid a visit to the Borgia Apartment and wrote a number of sketches about Lucrezia and Pinturicchio, who had painted her.

Louis Couperus read Gaston Boissier's Promenades archeologiques and made long walks through the ancient ruins of Rome.

Louis Couperus visited the exhibition in the Belle Arti in Florence, where Dutch painters exhibited their work.

Louis Couperus wrote a sketch called De jonge held about the son of friends in Italy who returned wounded from the front.

Louis Couperus then stayed in Sicily, where he visited Syracuse and Messina; he and his wife then returned to Florence.

When Louis Couperus celebrated his 50th birthday, Het Vaderland paid tribute to him by letting his friends and admirers publish praising words.

Louis Couperus admired them for their courage to speak despite the fact the public made so much noise they could hardly be heard.

Louis Couperus went to see the Mona Lisa, which had been found after it was stolen, at the Uffizi.

Louis Couperus said about new things such as futurism: The only thing that always will triumph in the end, above everything, is beauty.

Louis Couperus wrote an article about Papini's book, which he called magnificent, an almost perfect book, and he compared Papini with Lodewijk van Deyssel.

Papini and Louis Couperus met in Florence and Louis Couperus found Papini rather shy.

Meanwhile, Elisabeth Louis Couperus-Baud translated Pio Baroja's La ciudad de la niebla.

De Wrede portretten were a series of profiles of pension guests whom Louis Couperus had met during his travels in Rome and elsewhere.

Louis Couperus had a meeting with Dutch actress Theo Mann-Bouwmeester, who suggested to change Langs lijnen van geleidelijkheid into a play; although this plan did not come into reality for Couperus it opened possibilities for his books in future.

On 27 August 1914 the son of Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, Luitpold, died of polio and Louis Couperus went to see his body in the Theatrine Church.

Louis Couperus made a translation of Edmond Rostands Cantecler, although the play was never performed on stage.

Louis Couperus's first performance at the art room Kleykamp for an audience of students from Delft was a huge success.

Louis Couperus later published his travelogues as a result in De Haagsche Post, as well as many epigrams.

Louis Couperus continued giving performances for the public in the evening.

Louis Couperus read as research for this book Jacob van Maerlant's Merlijns boec and Lodewijk van Velthem's Boec van Coninc Artur.

In October 1920 Louis Couperus travelled for the Haagsche Post to Egypt; his travelogues were published weekly.

Louis Couperus met Frank Arthur Swinnerton during a lunch and went to a Russian ballet in the Prince's Theater, where the orchestra was conducted by Ernest Ansermet.

Louis Couperus met with his English publisher, Thornton Butterworth, visited a small concert, where Myra Hess played and had meetings with George Moore and George Bernard Shaw.

The next day Louis Couperus went to the Titmarsh club, where he met William Leonard Courtney, and heard Lady Astor, whom he had previously met in Constantine, speak in the House of Commons.

In Japan they visited Kobe and Kyoto; in this last place Louis Couperus became seriously ill, was diagnosed with Typhoid fever and was sent to the International Hospital in Kobe.

Louis Couperus was able to visit the opera again and went to see Aida.

In 1923 the couple moved to De Steeg, where Louis Couperus received the rather prestigious Tollens prize.

Louis Couperus' health deteriorated rapidly and apart from lung and liver problems Louis Couperus suffered from an infection in his nose.

On 11 July 1923, Louis Couperus was brought to hospital, because the infection in his nose had not healed, but came back home a day later.

Louis Couperus now suffered from erysipelas as well as sepsis in the nose.

Louis Couperus fell into a coma on 14 July, remained in that state for two days with high fever and died on 16 July 1923.

Louis Couperus was cremated at Westerveld, where Gustaaf Paul Hecking Coolenbrander, among others, spoke to remember Couperus.

Louis Couperus wrote hundreds of short stories, sketches, travel impressions, and letters, which were first published as feuilletons.