After his marriage to Kitty van Vloten, Verwey exchanged lively Amsterdam for the quiet Noordwijk aan Zee. He was able to study and write undisturbed here. This resulted in, among other, studies on earlier writers including Vondel, Potgieter and Bilderdijk. He also wrote many essays on contemporary writers. Many articles were compiled in the ten-part publication Proza (Proze) (1921-1923).

The young, enthusiastic and somewhat naive Verwey slowly changed into a man of letters with authority. He had a large network that even spread abroad and he was, among other, befriended with the German writer Stefan George. Although Verwey himself had never graduated, he was appointed as professor of Dutch Literature at the University of Leiden in 1924. He was also a member of the Marchant Commission that made preparations for a spelling reform in the 1930s.

Verwey's last major work was a new edition of Vondel's work (1937). After his death a study on his former brother-in-law Frederik van Eeden (1939) was published. During the last years of his life he wrote ‘time poems' in which he warned against National Socialism in Germany.

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