Dutch encyclopedists

Anthony Winkler Prins (30 or 31 January 1817 in Voorst – 4 January 1908 in Voorburg) was a Dutch writer. He is remembered mostly for being chief editor of the Winkler Prins encyclopedia.
Besides being an encyclopedist, Winkler Prins (a double surname) was a "Doopsgezind" (Mennonite) preacher. He also wrote editorials for many newspapers, as well as poetry.
Winkler Prins studied science and literature in Utrecht and later studied theology at the Doopsgezind Seminarium (Mennonite Seminary) in Amsterdam. From 1841 to 1850, he preached in the village of Tjalleberd.
From 1850 to 1882, Winkler Prins preached in the northern town of Veendam, where he completed his encyclopedia in 1882. He was very important to the community, not just as a preacher, but also because he founded a high school, a seafaring school and a Masonic Lodge.
After he retired as a preacher in 1882, he went to live with his daughter in Voorburg, where he died and was interred in 1908. A statue of Winkler Prins was erected outside the Veenkoloniaal Museum ("Peat Colony Museum") in Veendam in 1991; see photo. On 9 September 2005, the Museum had the remains of Winkler Prins and his wife Henderika reburied in the graveyard of the Reformed Church in Veendam.Winkler Prins' son Jacob (born in Tjalleberd on 5 February 1849, died at sea on 25 November 1907) was a poet (mostly of sonnets) and a painter.

Gerrit Jan Komrij (30 March 1944 – 5 July 2012) was a Dutch poet, novelist, translator, critic, polemic journalist and playwright. He rose to prominence in the early 1970s, writing poetry that sharply contrasted with the free-form poetry of his contemporaries. He acquired a reputation for his prose in the late 1970s, writing acerbic essays and columns often critical of writers, television programs, and politicians. As a literary critic and especially as an anthologist he had a formative influence on Dutch literature: his 1979 anthology of Dutch poetry of the 19th and 20th centuries, reformed the canon, and was followed by anthologies of Dutch poetry of the 17th and 18th centuries, of Afrikaans poetry, and of children's poetry. Those anthologies and a steady stream of prose and poetry publications solidified his reputation as one of the country's leading writers and critics; he was awarded the highest literary awards including the P. C. Hooft Award (1993), and from 2000 to 2004, he was the Dutch Dichter des Vaderlands (Poet Laureate). Komrij died in 2012 at age 68.