Jan Wagenaar (25 October 1709 – 1 March 1773) was a Dutch historian, best known for his contributions to ''Tegenwoordige staat van nederland'' and ''Vaderlandsche Historie''.

Biography

Wagenaar was born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

to a Mennonite master shoemaker of the same name and Maria Saftleven, a descendant of the landscape painter

Herman Saftleven Herman Saftleven the Younger (1609 - 5 January 1685 (buried)), was a Dutch painter of the Baroque period. Biography Born in Rotterdam, Saftleven lived most of his life (1632–1685) in Utrecht. His brothers, Cornelis Saftleven (1607–1681) an ...

. He was schooled in reading and mathematics and finished his education at a French school in Amsterdam. He was known for his poems and made his first play at age twelve, which was published without his consent. In 1722 another poem was published in ''

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English language, English) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the Provinces of the Nether ...

'' that he wrote for the village

sacristan A sacristan is an officer charged with care of the sacristy, the church, and their contents. In ancient times, many duties of the sacrist were performed by the doorkeepers ( ostiarii), and later by the treasurers and mansionarii. The Decretal ...

Zandvoort Zandvoort () is a municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is one of the major beach resorts of the Netherlands; it has a long sandy beach. It is bordered by coastal dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland National Park and the Amsterdam ...

. He was apprenticed to a Catholic merchant and later became a wood trader, but having trained himself in historical subjects through intense reading of the classics, he became a writer. His most famous work is ''Vaderlandsche historie'' (Amsterdam, 1749-1760, 21 vols), which became so popular it was continued by others (Amsterdam 1788-1810, 52 vols). This work is on the list of 1000 most important texts in the

Canon of Dutch Literature Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

. For this work, he at first in 1736 refused to publish his name as author, first revealing himself in the 20th volume in 1759.

Jacobus Houbraken Jacobus Houbraken (25 December 1698 – 14 November 1780) was a Dutch engraver and the son of the artist and biographer Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719), whom he assisted in producing a published record of the lives of artists from the Dutch Gol ...

made numerous engravings for these books, that were published by

Isaak Tirion Isaak Tirion (1705 in Utrecht – 1765 in Amsterdam) was an 18th-century publisher from the Dutch Republic. Biography According to the RKD, he is most remembered for his ''Hedendaagsche historie'' (''Modern History'') and his ''Vaderlandse Histor ...

of Amsterdam. In addition to ''Vaderlandsche historie'', he also wrote descriptions of the United States, the Netherlands (Amsterdam. 1739, 12 vols) and Amsterdam (ib. 1760, 3 vols).

References

External links

author page
on DBNL
Online Books by Jan Wagenaar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wagenaar, Jan 1709 births 1773 deaths Writers from Amsterdam Dutch Mennonites 18th-century Dutch historians