author
Willem Jan Cornelis van Hasselt
1795–1864
A 19th-century Dutch jurist, liberal politician, and man of letters, he moved easily between public life and literary culture. He is remembered for historical and biographical writing, including work connected to the story of the Haarlemmermeer.
1 Audiobook
Het Haarlemmer-Meer-Boek
by Jan Adriaansz Leeghwater, Willem Jan Cornelis van Hasselt
About the author
Born in Amsterdam on January 9, 1795, he studied law at Utrecht and built a career in public service as a judge in Amsterdam. He also served in Dutch national politics around the constitutional era of 1848, where he is described as a liberal member of the Tweede Kamer.
Alongside his legal and political work, he was active in Dutch literary life. Sources describe him as a writer of historical and biographical pieces, and Project Gutenberg lists him in connection with Het Haarlemmer-Meer-Boek, linking his name with 19th-century writing about the great lake and its history.
That mix of law, politics, and letters gives his work a distinctive tone: practical, informed, and closely tied to the civic and cultural life of the Netherlands in his time. He died in Amsterdam on March 2, 1864.