Beschrijving
19th century, one page oblong on laid paper, handwritten biography of Abraham Jacob van der Aa. Abraham Jacob van der Aa (7 December 1792 – 21 March 1857) was a Dutch writer best known for his dictionaries, one of notable people and the other of notable places in the Netherlands. He was born in Amsterdam in 1792. His father was a lawyer. From the ages of 6 to 12, he visited the dayschool in Amstelveen. After that, he was sent to the boarding school of J.E. van Iterson in Aarlanderveen but only stayed there for a year. After a short stay at the Latin school in Leiden, where his parents lived at that time, he was sent to the Seminarium in Lingen, Germany to study the ‘dead languages’. After his return in 1810, he went to medical school in Leiden, but had to leave after his father's death. He later did his mandatory military service until 1817. At that point, he tried to open a bookshop in Leuven, but this was not a success so he became a teacher in the Dutch language. After 1839, he moved to Gorinchem, where he wrote several reference works, including a gazetteer and a biographical dictionary, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden.