A few months after Louis Couperus’ death in 1923, his Indies travel letters, collected in Oostwaarts, hit the bookshops in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. The book was the first publication of publishing house H.P. Leopold, based in The Hague. The design on the book’s cover shows a wayang puppet, and was created by the sculptor and designer Tjipke Visser. The Indies photos in the book had been collected by Elisabeth Couperus-Baud during her journeys together with her husband. Oostwaarts met with a mainly positive reception in the Indies and Dutch press. The Middelburgsche Courant of 1 November 1923 was full of praise, as was De Sumatra Post of 10 December 1923. They hailed Couperus’ talent for holding the reader’s interest from start to finish with his light-hearted accounts. The anonymous journalist of the Middelburgsche Courant writes:
Many Indies’ experts will find the travelogue superficial, – which it often is. But there is one thing they must not forget: that this superficial, yet compelling story has familiarised hundreds and thousands of people with particularities of the Indies, which they would never have grasped, if they had had to dredge these from serious, but less fascinating studies.
Louis Couperus, Oostwaarts. H.P. Leopold: ’s-Gravenhage 1924 [1923]. [1507 A 13]