Amsterdam Tales PDF
Preview Amsterdam Tales
Amsterdam Tales Amsterdam Tales Stories translated by Paul Vincent Edited by Helen Constantine 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © General Introduction Helen Constantine 2017 © Introduction, selection, notes, translation Paul Vincent 2017 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2017 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2017933154 ISBN 978–0–19–880649–3 Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc Contents Picture Credits viii General Introduction ix Introduction xiii Joost van den Vondel Goes into Hiding (1625) 1 Gerard Brandt Rembrandt Catches a Pupil Red-Handed 9 Arnold Houbraken Spinoza is Banned from the Jewish Community (1656) 15 J. Colerus Peter the Great Works as a Ship’s Carpenter (1697) 21 J. C. Nomen An Opponent Inveighs against the Tram (1892) 27 W. Otto vi ■ Contents Amstel 33 Herman Heijermans The Black Cat 41 Jacob Israël de Haan Barricades in the Jordaan (1934) 53 Anonymous Amsterdam 1945–1946 61 Frans Pointl Itchy Feet 73 Simon Carmiggelt Single to Amsterdam 79 Remco Campert Letter to my Grandson 85 Abel J. Herzberg Goldfish 103 Anton Valens Who’s Afraid of Allah Akbar? 111 Pieter Olde Rikkert He Directs the Traffic 117 Sanneke van Hassel Massage Parlour 123 Thomas Heerma van Voss Contents ■ vii A Stroke of Luck 139 Margriet de Moor Pain in the Spleen 165 Robert Anker Notes on the Authors 186 Further Reading 188 Acknowledgements 190 Map of Amsterdam 192 Picture Credits Page xviii: © iStock.com/GCShutter Pages 8, 32, 40, 72, 78: © Helen Constantine Page 14: Rijksmuseum, gift of Mrs Brandt, Amsterdam Pages 20, 102, 110, 122, 164: © Shutterstock Page 26: Courtesy of the Library of Congress Page 52: © Emelha/Wikimedia Commons Page 60: © Nationaal Archief/Collectie Spaarnestad/Frans Bosen Page 84: © iStock.com/okeyphotos Page 116: © iStock.com/InnaFelker Page 138: © Travelpix/age fotostock Pages 192–193: map data © 2017 Google General Introduction Dwellers in the small fishing village who built a dam over the River Amstel in the twelfth century would not have recognized the modern tourist capital attracting 5 million visitors a year that Amsterdam has become in the twenty - first. With its 100 kilometres of canals and its many islands, it has become, like some other modern capitals with a historical centre, a Unesco World Heritage site which has been compared to Venice. Amsterdam has always been an outward-looking cap- ital. In the Golden Age of the seventeenth century it became the wealthiest and most important trading city in the world, sending ships to such diverse places as India, Brazil, and North America and thus laying the foundations for the future Dutch colonies. The diversity of peoples who emi- grated to Amsterdam from those countries is obvious in today’s cosmopolitan city, where half of the children are of non-Western origin. Here can be seen one of the widest varieties of nationalities of any city in the world.
The list of books you might like
