Little Johannes - Frederik van Eeden

In this allegory of childhood and youth, a series of increasingly sinister mentors - Windekind, Wistik, Pluizer and Dr. Cypher - guide the adventurous Little Johannes through fantastical worlds in search of the elusive book that explains why everything is as it is. Frederik van Eeden's best known work, De Kleine Johannes first appeared in the literary journal De Nieuwe Gids, published as an alternative to the more conservative De Gids to promote the new Dutch literature of the 1880s. At the end of the book, van Eeden promises to tell more of Johannes. This came in the form of two sequels published alongside Little Johannes in a volume published in English as The Quest in 1911. (Summary by Phil Benson)