About Jan de Hartog
Jan de Hartog (April 22, 1914 – September 22, 2002) was a Dutch playwright, novelist and occasional social critic who moved to the United States in the early 1960s and became a Quaker. == Early life == In 1914, Jan de Hartog was born to a Dutch Calvinist minister and professor of theology, Arnold Hendrik, and his wife, Lucretia de Hartog, who was a lecturer in medieval mysticism. He was raised in Haarlem in the Netherlands. When he was 10 year old, de Hartog ran away to become a cabin boy on board a Dutch fishing boat. Despite his father having returned de Hartog home, when he was 12 years old, de Hartog ran away to a steamer in the Baltic. At 16, he attended the Kweekschool voor de Zeevaart in Amsterdam, a training college for the Dutch merchant marine. De Hartog shoveled coal at night with the Amsterdam Harbour Police until 1932. While employed as skipper of a tour boat on the Amsterdam Canals, he wrote mysteries featuring Inspector Gregor Boyarski of the Amsterdam Harbor Police. He used the pseudonym "F. R. Eckmar." His theater career began in the 1930s at the Amsterdam Municipal Theater, where he acted in and wrote a play. == World War II == In May 1940, 10 days before Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands, de Hartog published his book Hollands Glorie (Holland's Glory, translated into English as Captain Jan).
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