DEKKER, EDWARD DOUWES Dutch writer, commonly known as MULTATULI, was born at Amsterdam on March 2, 1820. In 1838 he went out to Java, and obtained a post in the Inland Revenue. He rose from one position to another, until, in 1851, he found himself assistant-resident at Amboyna, in the Moluccas. In 1857 he was transferred to Lebak, in the Bantam residency of Java. By this time, however, he had begun to protest against the abuses of the colonial system. He was threat ened with dismissal from his office for his openness of speech, and, throwing up his appointment, he returned to Holland in a state of fierce indignation. He determined to expose in detail the scandals he had witnessed, and he began to do so in newspaper articles and pamphlets. In 186o he published, under the pseudonym of "Mul tatuli," his romance, Max Havelaar (Eng. trans. by W. Sieben haar, with introd. by D. H. Lawrence, 1927). This book made a complete exposure of the abuse of free labour in the Dutch Indies. His Minnebrieven (1861), in spite of their mild title of "love letters," proved to be mordant satires of the most rancorous and unsparing kind. He collected his miscellanies in uniform volumes called Ideen (7 vols., 1862-77), and shaking the dust of Holland from his feet, went to live at Wiesbaden. Dekker died at Nieder Ingelheim, on the Rhine, on Feb. 19, 1887. His Brieven (6 vols., 1890-92), and his Verzamelde Werken (lo vols., 1892) were edited by his widow.
See F. van Eeden, "Multatuli" in Studien (vol. i., 189o), and G. Tonckbloet, Multatuli (1894) .