A GREAT AND ENTHRALLING ADVENTURE

8. Epilogue The Wetenschappelijke Uitgeverij Mouton & Co. N.V. in The Hague had begun in 1953 with Peter de Ridder as chief, who proposed the young pro fessor C.H. van Schooneveld from Leiden to edit its first series. Van Schooneveld had access to valuable international contacts thanks to his stay in America. The De Ridder-Van Schooneveld partnership was soon based on the principle that all kinds of business could be decided upon directly and without consultation and in a rather informal atmosphere. Not only De Ridder, but also Van Schooneveld had business interests in Mouton through a royalty arrangement as editor. Nevertheless, idealism played a role in both men’s activities from the very beginning. With De Ridder’s departure from Mouton in 1974, the end of Van Schooneveld’s involvement was in sight. It is up to future writers to research and describe in greater depth Mouton’s growth and decline than can be done here. The same holds true for critically evaluating Mouton’s publisher’s list, which was dominated by American authors. In any case, Mouton was, despite its relatively short existence, one of the most important scholarly publishers that has ever operated in the Netherlands. It is difficult to imagine 20 th century Slavistics and linguistics with out acknowledging Peter de Ridder’s publishing and C.H. van Schooneveld’s editing of the Slavistic printings and reprintings and Janua linguarum series, in which many fundamental works appeared. ‘Voor mij is het een groot en meeslepend avontuur geweest’ 85 [‘It has been a great and enthralling adventure for me’], declares Van Schooneveld, as he reflects on his time at Mouton from his farmhouse in Haute-Savoie. The tens of meters of files that he donated to Leiden University Library in 1998 (with additional contributions in 2000), make it possible for us to reconstruct in the smallest details this adventure, in which for over twenty years literally thousands of persons were involved.

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