COUPERUS, LOUIS (1863-1923), Dutch writer, was born at The Hague. His life as a boy was spent in the Dutch East Indies, where his father was a prominent government official. His first novel Eline Vere, written under the influence of Tolstoy, appeared in 1889, and was followed by Noodlot (The Footsteps of Fate) in 1894 and Extaze, the first of his novels to be trans lated into English (1892). He next produced some imaginative and idealistic works, such as Majesteit (1895) and several vol umes of prose poems. The work by which he is best known to the English-speaking world is the series of "Books of the Small Souls," four novels entitled Die Kleine Zielen (The Small Souls), Het Late Leven (The Later Life), Zielen-schemering (The Twi light of the Soul), Het Helge Weten (Eng. version Dr. Adriaan), which together with Van Oude Menschen, de dingen de voorbij gaan (Old People and the Things that Pass, Eng. version, 1919) raised him to the first rank of European novelists. Couperus travelled much in Greece and Italy and embodied his classical researches in historical romances such as De Berg van Licht (The Mountain of Light), De Ko?nedianten (The Comedian) and mythological romances such as Dionyzos and Herakles (1913), as well as volumes of essays, sketches and short stories. The greater part of his work has been rendered into English by A. Teixeira de Mattos. His historical novel Iskander (concern ing Alexander the Great) appeared in 192o. He died at De Steeg, near Arnhem, Holland, July 16,