As a ‘general cultural periodical’ offering reviews on a wide variety of subjects, including literature and, more specifically, religion, arts and sciences, the Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen is a major source of information on publications that appeared in the Dutch Republic (and later in the Kingdom of Holland and its successor, the Kingdom of the Netherlands). For many years it was the country’s leading periodical, serving as a model for others and as a butt of criticism for the people behind the new magazine De Gids, which first appeared in 1837. Despite competition from this newcomer, the Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen (VLO) managed to survive until 1876.

In view of the magazine’s leading position and wide range of topics, works by women authors published in the Netherlands were likely to be mentioned. Unfortunately, we do not yet know to what extent works by any author were reviewed in the VLO. No percentages are known as the magazine has not yet been studied in detail.

In the course of its long existence, the VLO underwent a number of name changes. As this doesn’t make library searches for paper copies any easier, a list is given below of the names it had and the corresponding dates:

1761-1767: Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen

1768-1771: Nieuwe Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen

1772-1778: Hedendaagsche Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen

1779-1785: Algemeene Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen

1786-1790: Nieuwe Algemeene Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen

1791-1812: Algemeene Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen

1813-1876: Vaderlandsche Letter-Oefeningen, of tijdschrift van konsten en wetenschappen

The magazine produced a tremendous number of pages for perusal, about 500 per year, making a total of some 60,000 pages over its 115 years’ existence. A veritable mountain of paper, so it is very fortunate indeed that the former NIWI (Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services) - now Huygensinstituut - launched a project some years ago to publish the entire VLO on the Internet through the ‘e-Laborate’ programme. This initiative will greatly facilitate the study of the magazine itself and allow the creation of a much-needed (and sadly lacking) general framework to link the information obtained from its individual issues.