Mijn verlustiging

The theme of Mijn verlustiging (My delight, 1781), with vignettes drawn by Bilderdijk himself, is love, again and again. Some contemporaries believed that the poet sang of his subject in too fiery terms and that he placed too much emphasis on the physical aspects. For others, of course, this was precisely the reason to purchase the collection. All in all, the poet acquired a somewhat dubious reputation.

In 1784, Bilderdijk donated this copy of Mijn verlustiging to Catharina Rebecca Woesthoven, whom he addressed in his poems as 'Odilde' and with whom he was madly in love. Whether lines like ‘I also Sang of loveliness sometimes! – / Opulence – (Heaven!) never tasted!’ could dispel the impression that Bilderdijk was a rascal, is the question. In any case, the rumors were not a decisive obstacle for his 'Odilde' that prevented her from marrying him a little later. Both would later deeply come to regret that.