de Hartog, Jan

▪ 2003

      Dutch-American novelist and playwright (b. April 22, 1914, Haarlem, Neth.—d. Sept. 22, 2002, Houston, Texas), was the author of adventure tales and works for the theatre, including the long-running hit The Fourposter, as well as of nonfiction. Twice as a boy, at the age of 10 and again when he was 12, he ran away to sea. He studied at the Amsterdam Naval College in 1930–31 before going to sea again, and from 1932 to 1937 he was on the staff of the Amsterdam Municipal Theatre. In the 1930s, under the pseudonym F.R. Eckmar, he wrote several detective novels. His first major novel was Hollands glorie: roman van de zeesleepvaart (1940; Captain Jan: A Story of Ocean Tugboats, 1976). The story of a boy in the merchant navy, the book became associated with the Dutch resistance, and it was banned by the Nazis. The author was forced into hiding and by 1943 had escaped to England. His first novel written and published in English was The Lost Sea (1951), the story of a young boy who runs away to sea. The Fourposter, a two-character play of a long marriage that he had written while in hiding in The Netherlands, premiered in London in 1950, opened in New York City in 1951, and won a Tony Award in 1952. It was made into a film and then into the stage musical I Do! I Do!, which opened in 1966. Hartog wrote additional stage works, and other films made from his novels included The Spiral Road (1962; from Gods geuzen, 1948) and Lisa (1962; from De inspecteur, 1958). In 1962 he was writer in residence and lecturer at the University of Houston. The Hospital, an exposé based on volunteer work he and his wife had done at a charity hospital in Houston, was published in 1964. His works were translated into many languages.

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