Elisabeth Couperus-Baud


Elisabeth Wilhelmina Johanna Couperus-Baud, was a Dutch translator. She was the wife of the Dutch writer Louis Couperus.

Biography

Couperus-Baud was the daughter of Jan Carel Willem Ricus Theodore Baud, an assistant resident at Meester Cornelis and his cousin Johanna Wilhelmina Petronella Steenstra Toussaint. In 1890 she published, in the Dutch magazine "Nederland", a short story called Een galavoorstelling. She married in 1891 her cousin, Louis Couperus, son of John Ricus Couperus and jkvr. Catharina Geertruida Reynst. Louis Couperus wrote about Elisabeth Couperus-Baud in his novel De zwaluwen neergestreken: We are cousins and played together as children. We still own photographs of ourselves together, when we were young. In 1893 Louis Couperus received a letter from Oscar Wilde, in which he was complemented with his novel Noodlot; this book was translated into English by Clara Bell.
As a result of the correspondence Elisabeth Couperus-Baud was asked to translate Wilde's book The Picture of Dorian Gray. After her marriage to Louis Couperus, Couperus-Baud was active as a critic of her husband's work and made readable copies of his handwritings.
In time Couperus-Baud made numerous translations; she translated French, German, English, Spanish and Italian manuscripts. To her publisher, L.J. Veen, she wrote: everything you want. In 1899 she wrote the first of what had to become a series of travel letters in the Dutch magazine Hollandia, however only one letter was published. From 1915 onwards, when she and her husband had returned from their stay abroad, Couperus-Baud edited manuscripts and changed them into plays that could be performed on stage.
After the death of Louis Couperus the "Louis Couperus Genootschap" was founded in 1928. Chairman of the foundation was writer Henri van Booven, while Elisabeth Couperus-Baud was appointed chairman of honor. After the death of her husband she took his place as a member of the board of directors of the Dutch magazine "Groot Nederland". She died as a poor widow in a pension in The Hague, owned by Mrs. Stracker and Mrs. Teillers and her ashes were buried at the cemetery Oud Eik en Duinen in The Hague.
From October 2001 – April 2002 an exhibition about Elisabeth Couperus-Baud was held in and organized by the Louis Couperus Museum. Special attention was paid to Couperus-Bauds marriage with a suspected gay husband and her way of dealing with this. In 2007 a novel, written by Sophie Zijlstra, called Mevrouw Couperus, was published. Dutch writer Gerard Reve wrote about her: She had to endure quite a lot and Frédéric Bastet, biographer of Couperus, said: Zij kwam veel tekort.

Work

Letters