A Brill Calendar: September 30

Few sagas of a family enterprise illustrate Holland’s ‘Golden Age’ as succinctly as the story of the Elsevier family.

There is no clear-cut beginning to it. When Leyden University appointed Lodewijk Elsevier on September 30th 1586 as ‘Pedel’ in charge of the organization - and as ‘fac-totum’ - he was well set to start a dynasty. He was an associate of the great Plantijn, now in his final years. And Elsevier’s family was prodigious; his dear wife, Mayke Duverdyn, blessed her husband with two daughters and seven sons.

The halcyon days of the dynasty may be said to start in 1620, when Isaac (Leyden March 11, 1596 – Cologne October 8 1651) was installed as the 7th Printer to the Academy; soon to be replaced by the fraternal couple Abraham I and Bonaventura, the two uncrowned heads of the European publishing empire during Holland’s ‘Golden Age’ when it peaked; with family affiliations also at the Hague, Utrecht and Amsterdam.

It is seldom that a shrewd sense for generating massive sales and substantial profits demonstrated itself as convincingly as in the inexpensive pocket-sized books - provided to an insatiable market until well into the 18th century. But by 1681 the Amsterdam company was sold off; and dear old Leyden's offices followed, when the European Enlightenment was still young: in 1712. A totally immersed floating iceberg may appear to deceptively small. It is estimated that in some hundred years - as from 1620 – the Elseviers published some five thousand different titles.