Leiden University Libraries Digital Collections

This online collection consists of late 19th and early 20th-century Sino-Malay texts of from the Netherlands-Indies. The texts were written and published in Malay Indonesia’s Chinese-descended population. The collection is among the largest Malay/Indonesian textual corpora and contains valuable non-European perspectives on Indonesia’s colonial era. Several genres are represented: newspapers (Sin Po and Hoakiao), dime novels, educational works, translations, works on religion, poems, and literary works. Of the latter category, dime novels (roman picisan) were immensely popular at the time. Leiden University Library’s unique collection of more than 1000 dime novels can be accessed here in digital form.