Agatha Deken

Born in 1741, Agatha Pieters Deken—better known as Aagje Deken—became one of the most important Dutch writers of the late eighteenth century. After losing her parents as a child, she grew up in an Amsterdam orphanage, and later worked in service, ran a tea and coffee business, and joined the Mennonite community.

She first published devotional poetry, but her literary life changed when she met the writer Betje Wolff in the 1770s. The two became close friends and long-term collaborators, writing a series of popular books together. Their 1782 epistolary novel De historie van mejuffrouw Sara Burgerhart is widely regarded as the first Dutch novel in the modern sense.

Deken and Wolff spent part of their later lives outside the Dutch Republic during the political unrest of the 1780s, then eventually returned. Both died in 1804, only days apart, and their names have remained closely linked in Dutch literary history.