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So, in my view George Sand was part of the Dutch "cultural repertoire". I draw this conclusion from the evidence furnished by:<br> So, in my view George Sand was part of the Dutch "cultural repertoire". I draw this conclusion from the evidence furnished by:<br>
-'''1.her presence in lending libraries;<br>+'''1.her presence in lending libraries;'''<br>
-2.those translations that ''did'' exist;<br>+'''2.those translations that ''did'' exist;'''<br>
-3.her being mentioned in the periodical press;<br>+'''3.her being mentioned in the periodical press;'''<br>
-4.traces of (individual) reading of her books.'''<br>+'''4.traces of (individual) reading of her books.'''<br>
In the following, hyperlinks provide access to the source material, contained in the database ''WomenWriters'' - although the actual research has been done only in part with the help of electronic tools. Nevertheless this article is also being presented as an illustration of this way of accumulating evidence into a tool that allows drawing (provisional) conclusions, to be discussed. The article is an abridged version of "'Schrijvers, vertalers, uitgevers' [...]" (in press), which itself puts together different earlier articles published both in French and Dutch. <br><br> In the following, hyperlinks provide access to the source material, contained in the database ''WomenWriters'' - although the actual research has been done only in part with the help of electronic tools. Nevertheless this article is also being presented as an illustration of this way of accumulating evidence into a tool that allows drawing (provisional) conclusions, to be discussed. The article is an abridged version of "'Schrijvers, vertalers, uitgevers' [...]" (in press), which itself puts together different earlier articles published both in French and Dutch. <br><br>

Revision as of 18:57, 1 November 2009


George Sand in the Netherlands



At the difference of what had happened in most other European countries, the Dutch seemed not to have appreciated the novels of George Sand, the most famous French female novelist of the 19th century. This has been the prevailing opinion up to the 1980s, in line with the evidently bad reputation of French romanticism in the Netherlands as voiced in the periodical press (Van den Berg 1995). So it seemed fully comprehensible that (the very most of) her work had not been immediately commented nor translated into Dutch. Although the difference with the numbers of Sand translations in Germany (for instance) was quite shocking, the tendency was (myself not excluded) to document the Dutch absence and make it understandable by quoting articles from the literary press, in which the journalist stated that "he would have preferred Mister Sand’s Lélia [1833] having remained near the Seine in Paris" (1835), or two years later that "one would not hear this critic saying that he should not have wished George Sand [..] to be put in prison". There was at least some approval of the author of this "soul-destructing sensuality" being conscious of her crimes, while she understood she had to hide behind a male pseudonym.

There seemed to have been only one exception: the immediate translation into Dutch of Sand’s 1863 novel Mademoiselle La Quintinie (little translated into other languages). This case, however, could be also used as a confirmation of the lack of real literary interest, by referring to its content: a catholic priest being ridiculed and attacked. Given the Dutch situation where Protestants and Catholics were fighting each other, a Dutch protestant Association saw the usefulness of having precisely this book translated and distributed among Catholics in the south of the country. A polemic between catholic and protestant periodicals followed, and in fact Sand became accepted , as was again demonstrated by the important number of necrologies in the Dutch press (including the daily press) when she died in 1876. However, their authors make frequent allusions to her international success as "counter-balancing" the "scandalous novels" of her early period and her "unfeminine" behaviour (including divorce and male clothing).

Both the violent tone of the polemics following the Mademoiselle La Quintinie translation, and the recognition of the worldwide influence of Sand's oeuvre finally induced the question: was George Sand, yes or no, part of the 19th-century "cultural repertoire" of the Netherlands (Even-Zohar 1997)?

The recent history of Dutch language (Netherlands and Flanders) 19th-century literature apparently decided for the negative. Van den Berg and Couttenier do certainly not exclude women: they mention seven Belgian and 21 Dutch authors (percentage still to be calculated...). But any influence of or opinions about George Sand are described only for Belgian authors. Interestingly, one of the statements is that the Flemish critics officially rejected what, in fact, they were following.

This is precisely what also happened in the Netherlands - and has already been demonstrated in a series of articles, of which this contribution is only a brief abstract. Indeed since the history of reading, of the press, of translations has started to produce its outputs, it is impossible not to see the impact of George Sand for the Dutch reading public, which certainly was less important than her influence in Germany, England and Russia (for instance), and also less considerable than the presence of Dickens or Scott (for instance) in Holland.

So, in my view George Sand was part of the Dutch "cultural repertoire". I draw this conclusion from the evidence furnished by:
1.her presence in lending libraries;
2.those translations that did exist;
3.her being mentioned in the periodical press;
4.traces of (individual) reading of her books.
In the following, hyperlinks provide access to the source material, contained in the database WomenWriters - although the actual research has been done only in part with the help of electronic tools. Nevertheless this article is also being presented as an illustration of this way of accumulating evidence into a tool that allows drawing (provisional) conclusions, to be discussed. The article is an abridged version of "'Schrijvers, vertalers, uitgevers' [...]" (in press), which itself puts together different earlier articles published both in French and Dutch.

1.Sand's presence in lending libraries

I take as a first example the case of the (commercial) lending library of the brothers Van der Hoek in Leiden. The series of their catalogues, starting 1859, is interesting. When they took over the library in 1859, it contained ten novels by George Sand (in French). From 1859 on, each year the brothers issued new catalogues, which allow us to follow their subsequent acquisitions. Between 1861 and 1877 they bought 32 books by Sand, again mostly novels. In fact they bought nearly all of the (26) novels she published during this period, in most cases immediately after their publication. They bought them in French, and when Dutch translations in volume appeared, they also acquired them. Most interesting is the sudden presence of the scandalous Lélia, about which it would be interesting to be informed….

The statement (Luger 1995) that George Sand was little read, in Leiden and elsewhere, was evidently based on (a) partial consultation (only 1859) of the Van der Hoek catalogue, and (b) the existing negative image of the author. I suggest seeing, on the contrary, a real interest, in a library which probably can be considered as representative. This needs to be checked in more detail, but for the moment we found out that other libraries did propose books – non-translated – by Sand: a women’s library in Amsterdam addressing an elite, but also one (at least) of those libraries that had been founded by so-called Associations for Public Utility, whose objective was to try raising the intellectual levels of less privileged classes. Those people whom literary critics pretended to "protect" by exhorting translators to refrain from translating George Sand, apparently – in part – were able to read French. The attacks on Sand might well be explained – at least, again, in part – by the fact that people did read her.

2.Translations that did exist

Nevertheless some Dutch translations existed, which it is interesting to compare, as for quantities, to translations into other languages. Our database contains (provisional) figures (October 2009):

  • Germany: 154
  • UK, US, Eire: 99
  • Denmark: 33
  • Netherlands: 22
  • all countries/languages: 488.

On the whole, translating activities have been most intense during the first decades of Sand’s publishing. Translations in German have been the most numerous (but are also best documented; cf. Wiedemann xxx). Clearly the Dutch translations start being published very late. The number has in fact been exaggerated here. I included all translations: also those of theatre plays (generally not available in book form) and those published in the periodical press (often not included in inventories). Concerning translations in book form, there are only four of them, or even three: Mademoiselle La Quintinie, La Confession d’une jeune fille and (together in one volume) Francois le Champi and La Mare au diable. Apart from this small number, there is the fact that for five novels Dutch translations have been only announced, not realized.

Interestingly, all four translations in volume have been provided by a woman (resp. Ms. Brinkgreve, Johanna Badon-Ghijben, Suze Andriessen), while for a fifth novel, Le Compagnon du Tour de France (1841), an adaptation has been published by another woman, Helene Mercier (1887). These female activities constitute an interesting contrast to the mostly male exhortations to avoid translating Sand’s work.

3.Sand mentioned in the periodical press

As stated earlier, the Dutch periodical press did not much discuss George Sand, and mostly not in a positive way – at least before 1863. It was in the important literary/cultural journal entitled De Gids (The Guide, created in 1837 and taking example on the French Revue des Deux Mondes), that its founder, E.J. Potgieter, wished "George Sand [..] to be put in prison". Consequently there are virtually no articles discussing her publications apart from an extremely positive article about the same anti-catholic novel Mademoiselle La Quintinie by the influent critic (follower of Sainte-Beuve, but also good friend of Potgieter) Conrad Busken Huet.

But there is also Sand’s being simply mentioned in articles concerning other authors or subjects. These mentions are of course difficult to discover - in particular for paper copies of the journals. While waiting for the results of large-scale digitizing of journals and newspapers, we have been able to search the digital version of De Gids for "George Sand", and to find 89 of those mentions (between 1837-1911).


4.traces of (individual) reading of her books.






SvD, October 2009 (not finished)





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