From Spitsbergen to Suriname - Anne S. Troelstra

Natural history travel stories – travellers' stories in which flora, fauna and geology play a major role – were a flourishing subgenre within travel literature, especially in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Even though this flowering was richer and more abundant in countries such as Germany, England and the United States, a number of stories in this genre have also been published in the Dutch language that are still worth reading.

A representative selection has been made for this collection, provided with introductions and biographical information about the authors. They all traveled in the service of science; their passion for research often yielded exciting stories. There is the account of HA Lorentz's first, failed attempt to cross New Guinea from north to south. Or the story of the later Nobel Prize winner Niko Tinbergen, who investigated bird behavior in Greenland with his wife in 1932. And the unforgettable story of Jan P. Strijbos, who barely survived an icy exploration of Spitsbergen.

'The selected fragments provide a beautifully vivid picture of the experiences of the narrators.' - Nederlands Dagblad

'Anne Troelstra succeeded in putting together an interesting collection for which he chose the fragments in such a way that the reader is transported across the globe, from the far north, via North and South America to the east.' – Elsevier

'There are many interesting and amusing passages in this anthology.' – Leeuwarder Courant

• Dutch 
• Paperback 
• 9789045000817 
• Pressure: 1 
• June 2008 
• 478 pages