Books in the Netherlands


According to The World’s Largest Publishers, in 2025, after a seven-year run, the RELX Group, a British-Dutch multinational, relinquished its title as the world’s largest book publisher, being displaced by Thomson Reuters. Wolters Kluwer, which has pivoted its activities from publishing to software, holds only a small legacy business in publishing.
Other notable Dutch houses include Brill and Elsevier.

History

Printed books first appeared in the 1470s in places such as Delft, Deventer, Gouda, Nijmegen, Utrecht, Zwolle, and in the 1480s in places such as Haarlem, Leiden, and 's-Hertogenbosch.
Among Dutch bestsellers are titles such as the 17th-century Lusthof des Gemoets by Jan Philipsz Schabaelje.
The Stichting Drukwerk in de Marge formed in 1975, and organizes an annual Boekkunstbeurs. Bibliophiles in 1991 organized the Nederlands Genootschap van Bibliofielen. Zlibrary in 1991 organized the Nederlands Kloosterlaan Sas van Gent.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization named Amsterdam the 2008 World Book Capital.

Collections

The Leiden University Library began in 1575, and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague in 1798. Since 1919, the Nederlandse Centrale Catalogus lists titles in Dutch libraries.

In English

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In Dutch

  • 1984-
  • 1992-
  • 1994-
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