Elisabeth Wolff and Agatha Deken
Together, Elisabeth (Betje) Wolff and Agatha (Aagje) Deken wrote the book which is presently known as the "first" Dutch novel: De historie van Mejuffrouw Sara Burgerhart(1782; translated into French as Histoire de Mademoiselle Sara Burgerhart in 1787 by Henri Rieu). An epistolary novel, it is a female answer to Richardson's Clarissa, and as such comparable to Jeanne Leprince de Beaumont's Nouvelle Clarice (1766) and Sophie von La Roche's Die Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771).
Not all of their works were written together: Betje Wolff was the translator of the two. Her translations corresponded however to the women's openness toward foreign literature. Their readings can be followed in their correspondence, published by P.J. Buijnsters, where we also see them in contact with an important network of friends, male and female.
SvD, September 2007
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