12 h 5 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 12 h 5 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the comfort of an Amsterdam coffee broker rests on suffering he refuses to see?
Batavus Droogstoppel prizes facts, trade and respectability. When his shabby old schoolmate Sjaalman brings him a parcel of papers, he hires young Stern to shape them into a story. Those papers lead from Amsterdam to Java, where the wealth behind the coffee trade takes on a harsher meaning.
In Lebak, Max Havelaar arrives as a Dutch official with his wife Tine and their small son. He finds fertile land, hungry people and chiefs who take from the poor while officials look away. He tries to put things right within the rules, but his conscience puts him at odds with the system he serves.
What you’ll discover
- Satire with a sting Meet a smug coffee broker whose concern for respectability exposes what he prefers not to see.
- Conscience under pressure Follow Havelaar as he tries to protect the poor without abandoning courtesy or duty.
- Love amid injustice Discover Saijah and Adinda, young villagers whose hopes are bound to the fate of Lebak.
- The cost at home See Tine support her husband's conscience while fearing what his choices may cost their family.
- Voices that cut across Move between borrowed papers, sharp satire and tender storytelling as colonial profit comes into focus.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy satire, colonial history, and stories of conscience will love its honest officials and sharp comic voices. Fans of Dickens or Swift will find the same laughter and moral anger.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Drystubble mistakes self interest for truth
- A parcel opens an unwanted story
- Coffee profits depend on forced labor
- Havelaar sees poverty as a responsibility
- Stolen buffaloes reveal the human cost
- Kindness gives way to formal accusation
- Comfortable reports conceal a dangerous reality
- Piety gives profit a convenient excuse
- An honest voice remains worth using
Who’s who
- Max HavelaarA generous, quick-minded Assistant Resident of Lebak who wants to protect the poor from the chiefs and will not look away.
- TineHavelaar's loyal wife, who shares his poverty and his risks and believes in him completely.
- Batavus DrystubbleA pious Amsterdam coffee broker who loves truth in words, profit in practice, and his own respectability above all.
- ShawlmanDrystubble's poor schoolmate, a writer in a plaid shawl, whose parcel of papers holds the evidence from Java.
- SternA young German clerk in Drystubble's office who writes the chapters about Havelaar and Lebak, to the broker's annoyance.
- VerbruggeThe kind but timid Controller of Lebak, who knows about the abuses and fears for his sisters if he speaks.
- DuclariThe blunt army lieutenant at Rankas-Betong, who first calls Havelaar a fool and then stands by him.
- SaïdjahA Javanese boy from Badoer who loses his father's buffaloes and works for three years to marry Adinda.
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Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company
by Multatuli · 1860
A pompous coffee broker opens a poor schoolmate's parcel and finds a trail of stolen buffaloes in Java.
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In short
What would you do if a shabby stranger from your school days pushed a parcel of papers into your hands? Batavus Drystubble, a coffee broker in Amsterdam, tries to ignore the whole business.
Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company at a glance
- Reading time
- About 6 h 30 min5 h 10 min fast, 7 h 45 min slow
- Length
- 92,900 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1860by Multatuli
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A proud coffee broker swears by truth
Batavus Drystubble opens the book with a speech about himself. He is a coffee broker, forty-three years old, and a regular at the Exchange for twenty years. He says he hates novels and poems because they tell lies, and he names his principles as truth and common sense.
He offers proof with great energy. Poets bend the facts to fit a rhyme, he says. Plays show a rescued man giving half his fortune to his rescuer, yet Drystubble paid two pennies to the man who fished his hat out of a canal. Even virtue is not rewarded, he adds, and he points to old Lucas, the porter, who stayed honest all his life and now starves with gout.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1860
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Multatuli. Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/max-havelaar-or-the-coffee-auctions-of-the-dutch-trading-company.
Multatuli. (2026). Max Havelaar; or, the coffee auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/max-havelaar-or-the-coffee-auctions-of-the-dutch-trading-company (Original work published 1860)
Multatuli. Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/max-havelaar-or-the-coffee-auctions-of-the-dutch-trading-company.
@book{multatuli2026max,
author = {Multatuli},
title = {Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/max-havelaar-or-the-coffee-auctions-of-the-dutch-trading-company},
note = {First published 1860}
}
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What is Max Havelaar about?
It follows an honest Dutch official in Java who tries to stop a native Regent and his family from taking the labor and buffaloes of poor villagers. A pompous Amsterdam coffee broker frames the tale and its many voices.
Is Max Havelaar a true story?
It is a novel built on real events. Multatuli served in the Dutch East Indies and wrote from his own experience, using invented narrators and tales such as Saïdjah's to make the true abuses easy to feel.
Who was Multatuli?
Multatuli was the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker, a former colonial official in the Dutch East Indies. The name means I have suffered much. He published the book in 1860 to get the Dutch public to listen.
The author
Multatuli
1820–1887 · Dutch novelist
Multatuli was the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker, a Dutch writer born in Amsterdam in 1820. He lived and worked as a colonial official in the Dutch East Indies. His novel Max Havelaar appeared in 1860. He later lived in Germany, where he died in Ingelheim in 1887.
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