Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint was a Dutch novelist.
Life and career
Geertruida Toussaint was born in Alkmaar, Netherlands; her father, a pharmacist of Huguenot descent, gave her a fair education, and at an early period of her career she developed a taste for historical research, fostered by a forced indoor life as a result of weak health. Her first romance, Almagro, appeared in 1837, followed by De graaf van Devonshire in 1838; De Engelschen te Rome in 1840, and Het Huis Lauernesse in 1841, an episode of the Reformation that has been translated into many European languages. These stories, mainly founded upon some of the most interesting epochs of Dutch history, betrayed a remarkable grasp of facts and situations, combined with an undoubted mastery over her mother tongue, although her style is sometimes involved and not always faultless. Ten years were mainly devoted to further studies, the result of which was revealed in 1851–1854, when she published a series of three novels dealing with the first Earl of Leicester's adventures in the Low Countries. In 1851 she married the Dutch painter, Johannes Bosboom, and thereafter was known as Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint. After 1870 Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint abandoned historical romance for the modern society novel, but her Delftsche Wonderdokter and Majoor Frans did not command the success of her earlier works. Majoor Frans has been translated into English. Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint's novels have been published in a collected edition. She died in The Hague.
Works
Almagro
De Graaf van Devonshire: romantische épisode uit de jeugd van Elisabeth Tudor
Engelschen te Rome: romantische épisode uit de regering van paus Sixtus V
Media-Noche: een tafereel uit den Nijmeegschen vredehandel, 1678
Gideon Florensz: romantisch-historische épisode uit het laatste tijdperk van Leycesters bestuur in Nederland
Graaf Pepoli: de roman van een rijke edelman
De triomf van Pisani
De verrassing van Hoey in 1595
De Delftsche wonderdokter
Majoor Frans
Raymond de schrijnwerker
Volledige romantische werken
Until 1851, when Geertruida Toussaint married Johannes Bosboom, her works were published under her maiden name. Later works and reprints of her earlier works carried her married name.
