Clare Lennart

Clara Helena Klaver (1899–1972),

Lennart graduated in 1918 and began a teaching career that took her to various places and she ended up in Utrecht. In class, she amused her students with stories she made up and discovered a talent she had always had but never worked on. In Utrecht she started a relationship with Wim van den Boogard, a cook in the military, who was eleven years older than her and married; his Catholic wife refused a divorce, and the relationship brought her in conflict with the city government and she was forced to quit her teaching job in 1927. She took in lodgers, and hoped to make extra money by writing and publishing. That same year she published a book for girls, ('The Wide World'), which won awards including a monthly award for the best book for young adults. She continued to published regularly—with the exception of the war years—for a growing audience. Many of her books were based on childhood memories and experiences, often derived from living on the country estate in her early years.

Lennart also translated from English and French--books by Pearl Buck, Truman Capote, Colette, Charles Dickens, André Maurois, Dorothy Sayers, and others. She was also active as a board member of the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde and on the staff of , , and other newspapers, and she had a biweekly column in the , the daily newspaper for Utrecht.

Critical reception Lennart's children's books are often based on autobiography, most successfully in ('The Wide World', 1936), which most obviously leans on her childhood on the nursery and her school experience. Nature plays an important part in all her books; it is a secretive thing that begs to be investigated, but also a refuge for those who need to escape the reality of everyday life. Cats are often important characters in her children's books, particularly in , a fairy tale, in which cats live in little houses and dress like people. Human-like cats also figure in , a collection of poems, and in ('Kathinka from Catwhiskerstreet').

('Magic Lantern', 1937) was praised by contemporary critic C. J. Kelk in a long chapter in which he distinguished between "real literature" and a mass of commercial novels written by "ladies and semi-ladies, clumsy historical poets, raconteurs, and whole- or half-lettered writers". Lennart was not one of those women, he said while wondering whether she was foreign-born, and summarized the novel (whose autobiographical elements are now evident), praising its willingness to include drastic plot turns and symbolism. This, he says, means Lennart is taking a step that regular Dutch novelists would not. G. J. van Bork describes her work as romantic and idealistic, tempered by the clash between dream and reality. Many of her characters attempt to withdraw from a bourgeois mentality, such as artists and bohemians. Mostly forgotten today, she did not make it into the canon of Dutch literature for adult or children's literature, and some of her books are out of print.

Publications Avontuur (Van Holkema & Warendorf, 1935) De blauwe horizon (Bruna, 1936) Mallemolen (Holkema & Warendorf, 1936) Tooverlantaarn (Bruna, 1937) Huisjes van kaarten (Bruna, 1938) Maanlicht. Een sprookje voor groote menschen (Bruna, 1939) Ter herinnering aan Rotterdam ('In Memory of Rotterdam', Bruna, 1946) Kasteel te huur (Bruna, 1948) Twee negerpopjes (Boekenweekgeschenk, 1949) Rouska (Nederlandsche Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1949) De blauwe horizon (reprint, with sequel added, Stols, 1950) Serenade uit de verte ('Serenade from Far Away', Stols, 1951) Liefde en logica. Novellen ('Love and Logic: Novellas', Stols, 1952) Stad met rode huizen ('City with Red Houses', Stols, 1954) Rouska (rev. ed. of the 1949 book, Stols, 1953) Op schrijversvoeten door Nederland (Boekenweekgeschenk, 1955) De ogen van Roosje. 's-Gravenhage, A.A.M. Stols, 1957) Scheepjes van papier (Stols/Barth, 1962) Utrecht. Stad en provincie (Holland, 1962) Twintig ramen aan de straat. Een vertelling (Nijgh & Van Ditmar 1965) Pluk een roos (Kosmos, 1965) Een mus op je vensterbank (1969)

Memoir Weleer (Nijgh & Van Ditmar 1971) Weleer II (Nijgh & Van Ditmar 1976)

Children's and young adult books De wijde wereld. Een verhaal voor oudere meisjes (van Nelle, 1935) Prinsesje Mimosa (Bruna, 1951) Kathinka uit de Kattesnorstraat (Stols, 1957) Iboe. Poesenversjes (Stols, 1961) Rinus Spoormuis (Stols, 1961) Martijn en Martientje (Holland, 1965) Kinderverhalen (Holland, 1965) De bosjespoesen (Holland, 1967) Het vrouwtje Tamarinde (Holland, 1970) Notitieboek voor poesen (Bakker, 1972)