EFFEN, JUSTUS VAN

(1684–1735)

   Editor. Van Effen studied law and became a minor civil servant. However, he enjoyed greater renown as a man of letters. He edited several periodicals (in French), in which he criticized contemporary morals and abuses in an ironic vein. Van Effen was a typically mild, tolerant, and rationalist exponent of the Enlightenment. After the model of Joseph Addison’s and Richard Steele’s The Tatler and The Spectator, he introduced the “spectatorial” periodical in the Netherlands (De Hollandsche Spectator, 1731–1735).

   See also Dutch language and literature.