Augusta de Wit

Augusta Anna Augusta Henriette de Wit (25 November 1864 – 9 February 1939), also known by the pen name George W. Sylvius (Also cited as G.) W. Sylvius and Georges W. Sylvius. De Wit is best known for her 1903 novel . For health reasons De Wit left teaching in 1896, and began writing English-language travel reports for The Straits Times about her travels in Java. These travels reports were later published in Singapore as the illustrated book Facts and Fancies about Java in 1898.

Further books followed, including the novel Orpheus in de Dessa (1903), Island-India (1923), and De wijdere wereld (1930). She also wrote short stories, and corresponded with D. H. Lawrence about translating his works into Dutch. As literary critic at the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, de Wit admired the work of Edith Wharton.

Personal life Augusta de Wit was ill for several years before she died in 1939, aged 74 years, in Baarn. "She ranked among such authors as , , and and was a writer of temperate realism with an Oriental touch," recalled the New York Times in a brief obituary note. In recent years, her work is usually mentioned in the context of women writers and Dutch colonialism.