Abstract
This article attempts to trace some of the historical and literary used by the Dutch author Simon Vestdijk (1898-1971) in the writing of his two "Irish" novels, Ierse nachten (1946) and De vijf roeiers (1951). The remarkable similarities between these two novels and the Irish Big House novel have so far been ignored. Although there is no positive evidence that Vestdijk knew of the Big House novel, or had read Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent and The Absentee, a comparison with Edgeworth suggests strongly that he was at least familiar with the genre, and probably with her work. Even if the many analogies between Ierse nachten and Castle Rackrent cannot be used to prove a direct influence, they serve to indicate the degree to which Vestdijk had familiarized himself with the social and historical circumstances he deals with in his Irish novels.
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