author
Agatha Deken
1741–1804
An 18th-century Dutch writer remembered above all for her partnership with Betje Wolff, she helped create one of the best-known early novels in Dutch literature. Her life moved from orphanage hardship to literary success, giving her story unusual depth as well as historical importance.
1 Audiobook
Historie van Mejuffrouw Sara Burgerhart
by Elizabeth Bekker Wolff, Agatha Deken
About the author
Born Agatha "Aagje" Deken in 1741, she lost both parents as a small child and was raised in the Oranje Appel orphanage in Amsterdam. After leaving the orphanage, she worked in service, ran a tea and coffee business for a time, and later became connected with the Mennonite community.
Deken is best known for her close literary collaboration with Betje Wolff. Together they wrote the epistolary novel De historie van mejuffrouw Sara Burgerhart (1782), often described as the first Dutch novel, and they went on to publish more fiction and other writings as a team.
She spent her later years with Wolff, including a period in exile in France after political unrest in the Dutch Republic. Deken died in The Hague on November 14, 1804, only days after Wolff, and the two remain closely linked in Dutch literary history.