COSTER, CHARLES THEODORE HENRI DE (1827 1879), Belgian writer, was born at Munich on Aug. 20, 1827. His father, Augustin de Coster, was a native of Liége, who was attached to the household of the papal nuncio at Munich, but soon returned to Belgium. Charles studied at the University of Brussels. Believing that Flemish manners and speech could not be rendered faithfully in modern French, he wrote his best works in the old tongue. The success of his Legendes fla mandes (1857, 2nd ed., with preface by E. Deschanel, 1861) was increased by the illustrations of Felicien Rops and other friends (Eng. trans. by H. Taylor with wood cuts by Albert Destanche, 192o) . In 1861 he published his Contes brabancons, in modern French. His masterpiece is his Legende de Thyl Uylenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak (1867), a 16th-century romance, in which Belgian patriotism found its fullest expression. Uylenspiegel (Eulenspiegel) has been compared to Don Quixote, and even to Panurge. He is the type of the i6th-century Fleming, and the history of his resurrection from the grave itself was accepted as an allegory of the destiny of the race. The exploits of him self and his friend form the thread of a semi-historical narrative, full of racy humour, in spite of the barbarities that find a place in it. This book also was illustrated by Rops and others. There are English translations by G. Whitworth (1918) and by F. M. Atkinson (1922). In 187o de Coster became professor of general history and of French literature at the military school. He died on May 7, 1879, at Ixelles, Brussels.
See C. Potvin, Charles de Coster. Sa biographie, lettres a Elisa (1894) ; H. Liebrecht, La Vie et le rive de Charles de Coster (1927)• In 1927 Stephanie, a drama in 5 acts, by De Coster, was published for the first time, with a preface by Camille Huysmans ; it is dated 1878, but was probably a revision of an early play Crescentius, written in