The book was to be the highlight of a magnificent celebration, as was the lot of the writer Hendrik Conscience, a year earlier, in Belgium when his hundredth book was published.

Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint awaited the result with some misgivings. 'I look forward to '82 with some apprehension', she wrote to her friend Busken Huet. 'Following the party in honour of Conscience, people in Holland got it into their head to celebrate my seventieth birthday and it is difficult to get away from it'.

On the other hand, her husband, the painter Johannes Bosboom, was most enthusiastic. She complained: 'Bosboom, who is so bashful otherwise, now helps these people along'.

Many the contributions did not find favour with Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint. For instance, she was critical of the contribution made by the Catholic writer J.A. Alberdingk Thijm featuring a nosegay 'with the thorns in front - so you could not miss them' and she thought J. Kneppelhout's contribution to be a sign of bad taste.