I don't know about you, but I am always on the lookout for historical fiction that is something that bit different, whether it be setting, subject or something else. As soon as I heard about this book, I thought it sounded really interesting for a number of reasons, but if I had to pick just one reason then it would be because of my husband's Dutch heritage.

I originally intended to read this mid last year when my read on a theme bookclub chose Science as a theme. However, I realised that it was too early compared to release date so I ended up reading Lessons in Chemistry instead. The theme for our January meeting was a book with a place name in the title. I must confess I did have about 40 different titles on my Kindle that would have fit the theme, and that doesn't include any titles with Paris in it, but this was the perfect choice for me!

We first meet Dorothea Graff (also known as Dortje or Dort) she is living in a Labatist community. Her mother has moved with her daughters into the religious community, leading to the breakdown of her marriage. It is a very austere life, and the only joy for Dortje is the times when she gets to spend time with her mother assisting with her work.

Her mother, Maria Sybilla Merian, is a famous naturalist, someone who observes nature and then, in Maria's case, creates amazing manuscripts full of detailed paintings and descriptions. Her work is popular and incredibly collectible at the highest levels of society. Dortje grows up assisting her mother, and when Maria decides to travel to Suriname there is no question as to whether she will be her mother's companion. It is a remote and dangerous life, but there is also incredible beauty in the unique plants and creatures that abound.

Whilst Dort loves her life in Suriname, she does wonder if she will ever have an identity of her own, whether she will ever meet an appropriate suitor. When the family returns to Amsterdam, it seems like her time may have come, but sometimes life gets in the way, and soon it becomes clear that not only is she her mother's companion, assistant and student she will be responsible for the protection of her ongoing legacy.

This is not necessarily an easy read. There is lots of details around the insects, about the printing processes and techniques and more. It is a book that feels pretty meaty but for me that was one of the things I loved about it.

I also love it when you are reading great historical fiction and you find yourself going off to Google to search for information after reading about something and that is what happened with this book. This is especially true give that this book tells the story of real women from history.

I found myself searching for information about things like the Labatists religious community. Another thing that I learnt about was the existence of the Dutch West Indies Company. I feel like I know a bit about the Dutch East Indies Company, particularly given some of the history where Dutch explorers found the West Australian coat, and being involved in Indonesian history and more. I can't say I knew a lot about the Dutch West Indies Company. In a way, I would think it should be more well known given that the Dutch West Indies were responsible for founding New Amsterdam, which in time became New York, but it isn't really.

I also found myself searching for more information about Suriname, as I am not sure I could have said where it was prior to reading this book.

After having read about it in this book, I have added a place to visit next we go to Amsterdam to visit my brother in law and his family, which may be as soon as later this year. Hortus Botanicus is the oldest botannical gardens in the world and I definitely intend to go and explore at some point.



I am so glad that I got to read this book, and I am very interested to explore Melissa Ashley's backlist. It seems as though she rights about fascinating women from history, and I am looking forward to reading more.





Rating 5/5

4.5★s
The Naturalist Of Amsterdam is the third novel by New Zealand-born Australian author, Melissa Ashley. When her Opa Marrel dies in 1681, three-year-old Dorothea Graff and her family move to Frankfurt to be with Oma Merian at Maria Merian’s insistence. Doortje knows her Papa is unhappy to leave behind clients, wealth and prestige in Nuremburg.

Her Ma is an artist who is already a published author of Natural History books, and is convinced by her half-brother, Caspar, to leave the corrupt world and join the Labadists, followers of Jean Labadie’s teaching, at Walta Schloss, an estate bought for them by the richest family in Friesland.

The Labadists, though, are a miserable lot, rejecting beauty and joy; Dort doesn’t like them much, especially the discipline she’s subjected to and, before long, Johann Graff renounces their ideals and is cast out by Maria.

Maria has a laboratory where she can indulge in her studies, with Dort her assistant in collecting specimens, while Dort’s older sister Hanna produces images of their finds. So it takes until Dort is thirteen for her mother to become disillusioned with the Labadists, to up sticks and head for Amsterdam.

In the intervening years, Hanna has married, but the family sets up an atelier where they sell paintings, Maria’s books, and art supplies and teach, until Maria’s desire to find new insect, plants and animals has her hatching a plan to go to the former Labadist settlement in Suriname. Even as Dort, now nineteen, is hoping to meet a suitable man, her mother is dragging her to the tropics to help collect.

But all is not lost: some interesting years collecting exciting finds, until Maria is laid low by an illness that forces a return to Amsterdam. Dort gets to know the young ships surgeon who has a keen interest in her mother’s work, and in Dort herself. A proposal ensues.

But if Dort thinks that being Mrs Philip Hendriks and mother od Eliza Maria will guarantee a settled life in Amsterdam, she has another think coming. Philip’s wanderlust soon reemerges, and he contracts as ships surgeon several times, taking along trinkets to trade with the East Indies natives for sought-after insects and animals that can be sold back home.

Dort moves back in with Maria, once again assisting her, and her sister Hanna with specimens, and Maria’s ambitious project, a richly illustrated book detailing the metamorphosis of insects of Suriname: this is better than moping at home without her beloved.

Fortune doesn’t smile upon Dort, though: she loses her daughter, her sister migrates to Suriname, her husband succumbs to illness at sea, and her mother suffers an affliction that, even when she recovers, leaves her much reduced. It takes the loss of her mother for Dort to realise that she could “step out of the invisibility of widowhood and being my mother’s assistant.”

Determined to complete her mother’s latest project, she finally realises “I could draw, paint, engrave, etch, design, translate, prepare letterpress and copperplate. I could correspond, run a household, negotiate a network of clientele. I was a naturalist of Amsterdam, just as Ma had been.”

Ashley certainly conjures her setting and era with consummate ease; her descriptive prose is rich and evocative, and it isn’t difficult to hope for a good outcome for her protagonist. Based on a the life of an actual European naturalist, this is quite a mesmerising historical fiction novel.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Affirm Press.

This turned out to be an excellent and quite surprising book, based on real characters, the naturalist and artist Maria Merian and her daughter Dorothea.

The book is set at the turn of the seventeenth century, and follows Maria and Dorothea, or Dortje as she prefers to called, in their remarkable lives. Imagine, in those times, two women travelling all the way from Amsterdam to Suriname in order to record and paint insects, animals and birds. But these women were real and they genuinely did this.

There is a lot of discussion about mixing paints and pinning specimens, but I found the main story line dramatic and at times even suspenseful. I actually found it hard to put down! Dortje lived much of her life in her mother's shadow and I was rooting for her to find her own way by the end. I am very glad I chose to read this book.

‘Oma, Ma, my sister, Johanna, and I had joined the Labadists at Walta Schloss only two seasons ago and I knew already that they did not like children.’

Set in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, this novel introduces us to Maria Sibylla Merian and her daughters Johanna and Dorothea Graff (known as Dortje), our narrator. Maria Sibylla Merian is a talented naturalist, an artist, and a restless soul. After joining the Labadists—a strict Protestant sect named after its French founder Jean de Labadie (1610–1674)— with her mother and daughters, she separates from her husband. After her mother dies, Maria Sibylla leaves the Labadists and moves to Amsterdam which was, at the time, at the centre of world trade. She then takes Dortje to Suriname where the Labadists had a community. Here, with Dortje’s help, Maria Sibylla immerses herself in understanding and drawing the metamorphoses of the native insects, and in learning about native medicine. Unfortunately, Maria Sibylla contracts malaria, and she and her daughters return to Amsterdam. Here, because she is unable to establish a business as a married woman, Maria Sibylla claims to be a widow. After Johanna marries, Maria Sibylla relies even more heavily on Dortje.

And what about Dortje? While she seems destined to live in her mother’s shadow, she does find happiness before tragedy strikes. As Maria Sibylla’s health fails, Dortje’s own knowledge as a naturalist becomes apparent. And it seems that Dortje’s commitment to preserving Maria Sibylla’s legacy will have a significant emotional and personal cost.

Before I picked up this novel, I knew nothing about Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) and her daughters Johanna (1668-1723) and Dorothea (1678-1743). Part way into the novel, I started searching online for some of the artworks referred to. And by the time I finished this novel, I wanted to know more.
For those who are also interested, search for Maria Sibylla Merian: pioneering artist of flora and fauna at the British Museum

Ms Ashley brings Maria Sibylla, her daughters, and the period in which they lived to life. This was a golden age for Amsterdam, thanks to the Dutch East India Company. This is Ms Ashley’s third novel, and I have enjoyed them all.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Affirm Press for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

When I read the blurb for this book I thought it sounded interesting and one I would enjoy. But I'm afraid to say I didn't enjoy it as much as I had expected which was a disappointment for me. It was overly detailed and descriptive making is a long winded read and one which I have to say I skipped through.

In the end I have to say I didn't finish it as I ran out of patience. It would be interesting to anyone who might like to read history books but it was a bit too history bookish for my taste.

Thank you NetGalley and Affirm Press for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

A full yet heavy of detail historical fiction novel that follows Maria and her mother Dorothea from Suriname to Amsterdam with detailed passages of landscapes, artistry, and wonders of the natural world, which all paint a wonderous story for the reader.
 
Full of rich research on Labadist religion, entomology, art, painting, science, all captured in the middle of Amsterdam's Golden Age.