author
J. F. (Johann Friedrich ) Scheltema
1855–1922
A Dutch East Indies writer whose books explore Java’s monuments, landscapes, and colonial-era life in rich, observant detail. His work blends travel, history, and cultural description, especially in writing about Indonesia in the early twentieth century.
1 Audiobook
Monumental Java
by J. F. (Johann Friedrich ) Scheltema
About the author
Born in 1855, J. F. Scheltema wrote in English about Java and the Dutch East Indies, and his surviving books show a strong interest in the region’s history, architecture, and everyday life. He is best known for Monumental Java (1912), a wide-ranging study of the island’s ancient monuments and antiquities.
Other works linked to him include The Opium Trade in the Dutch East Indies and Peeps at Many Lands: Java. Archival and catalog records also connect him with reminiscences of life in the Dutch East Indies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, suggesting a writer deeply engaged with the place and its colonial society.
Scheltema died in 1922. While biographical details about his personal life are not easy to confirm from major online sources, his books remain a useful window into how Java and the Dutch East Indies were described to English-language readers of his time.