Short stories
Camera Obscura
Not translated into English
Nicolaas Beets (Hildebrand) · 1839
Synopsis
Hildebrand, a student, casts his eye over the Holland of the stagecoach and the barge. Landing in a small town, he stays with his uncle and aunt Stastok, bourgeois to their fingertips, watches his cousin Pieter fall in love and listens to Keesje, the little old man of the deacons' almshouse, tell him his life story. Elsewhere, a disagreeable man, Nurks, spoils an outing in the Haarlem woods; the student runs into an old acquaintance and frequents the Kegge family.
Context
Signed with the pseudonym Hildebrand, the book was written for the most part in 1837, during its author's studies, and appeared in 1839 from the Erven F. Bohn, in Haarlem; the second edition followed six months later. It then grew with each reissue: the third, in 1851, added “De familie Kegge” and “Gerrit Witse”, and the fourth, in 1854, was regarded as definitive. The publisher reprinted it throughout the century, and Léon Wocquier translated it into French in 1860. In 1962, Jan Bronner set up in the Haarlem wood a monument in which Hildebrand towers over eight of his characters.
Who it is for
Independent stories and sketches, in the Dutch of the 1830s, which can be read separately. The irony works through details rather than through words.
Prizes and reception
Sixth in the canonical Dutch survey of 2002 and thirty-ninth in that of 2022, it is a classic of the country's prose.