“ CREMER, JAKOBUS JAN (1837–1880) , Dutch novelist, born at Arnhem in September 1837, started life as a painter, but soon exchanged the brush for the pen. The great success of his first novelettes (Betuwsche Novellen and Overbetuwsche Novellen) , published about 1855—reprinted many times since, and translated into German and French—showed Cremer the wisdom of his new departure. These short stories of Dutch provincial life are written in the quaint dialect of the Betuwe, the large flat Gelderland island, formed by the Rhine, the name recalling the presumed earliest inhabitants, the Batavi. ”