Books by R. Dekker

Between the 17th and 19th centuries auto-biographers and diarists invented new ways to write about childhood and children. This book makes clear how changes in autobiographical style, the concept of childhood and the working of human memory are connected.

The humorous side of Dutch culture of the seventeenth century is obscured by a change that took place around 1670. Religious treatises and books of manners warning against laughter contributed to a new image, that of the humourless, Calvinist Dutch.