Chaitali Sengupta has produced a fluent and easy-to-read translation of two collections of stories that have long remained in the shadows, even among Dutch readers. Without adopting all of Couperus’ archaic turns of phrase, her translation nowhere feels forcedly modern. In doing so, she has done Couperus’ text full justice, making a number of relatively unknown but culturally historically very interesting stories accessible to a wide English-reading readers.