Everhardus Johannes Potgieter

In 1831 he made a journey to Sweden, described in two volumes Het Noorden in omtrekken en tafereelen ("The North in Outlines and Scenes") , which appeared at Amsterdam in 1836–1840.

With Jan Pieter Heije (1809 – 1876), the popular poet of Holland in those days, and Reinier Cornelis Bakhuizen van den Brink (1810 – 1865), the rising historian (see also Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801 - 1876)), Potgieter founded De Muzen (The Muses, 1834–1836), a literary review, which was, however, soon superseded by De Gids (The Guide), a monthly, which became the leading magazine of Holland.

Under the title of Personen en Onderwerpen ("Persons and Subjects") many of Potgieter's critical essays had collectively appeared in three volumes at Haarlem in 1885, with an introduction by Conrad Busken-Huet.

The same vein of altruistic, if often exaggerated and biased, abhorrence of the conventionalities of literary life runs through all his writings, even through his private correspondence with Huet, parts of which have been published.

According to a critique in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, Potgieter's influence in Holland was very marked and beneficial; but his own style, that of ultra-purist, was at times somewhat forced, stilted and not always easily understood.