His oeuvre contains a wide variety of genres: lyric poetry, psychological and historical novels, novellas, short stories, fairy tales, feuilletons and sketches.

Louis Marie-Anne Couperus was born on 10 June 1863 at Mauritskade 11 in The Hague, Netherlands, into a long-established, Indo family of the colonial landed gentry of the Dutch East Indies.

[1] He was the eleventh and youngest child of John Ricus Couperus (1816–1902), a prominent colonial administrator, lawyer and landheer or lord of the private domain (particuliere land) of Tjikopo in Java,[2] and Catharina Geertruida Reynst (1829–1893).

[3]: p.61  On 6 November 1872 the Couperus family left home, travelled by train to Den Helder and embarked on the steamboat Prins Hendrik, which would bring them back to the Dutch East Indies.

[3]: p.84  At the HBS Couperus met his later friend Frans Netscher; during this period of his life, he read the novels written by Émile Zola and Ouida (the latter he would meet in Florence, years later).

Virginie la Chapelle wrote the music, and Couperus provided the lyrics for De schoone slaapster in het bosch ("Sleeping beauty in the forest").

[3]: p.96  In 1882, Couperus started reading Petrarch and had the intention to write a novel about him, which was never realized, although he did publish the novella In het huis bij den dom ("In the house near the church"), loosely inspired by Plutarch.

[3]: p.100  In these days a person Couperus greatly admired for his sense of beauty and intelligence was writer Carel Vosmaer, whom he frequently met while walking in the center of The Hague.

[3]: p.108  In June 1885 he was appointed member of the very prestigious Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (Society of Dutch Literature), two years after he published Orchideeën.

[3]: p.114 Shortly before Couperus wrote Eline Vere, he had read War and Peace and Anna Karenina, written by Leo Tolstoy.

[3]: p.122  Between 17 June until 4 December 1888, the novel Eline Vere was published in the Dutch newspaper Het Vaderland; a reviewer in the Algemeen Handelsblad wrote: "The writer has talent".

[3]: p.124  In this period of his life, Couperus was an active member of the drama club of writer Marcel Emants ("Utile et Laetum" meaning 'useful and happy'), and here he met a new friend, Johan Hendrik Ram, a captain of the grenadiers, who would later commit suicide (December 1913).

[3]: p.126  In April 1890 the Nieuwe Gids (New Guide) published a review of Eline Vere, written by Lodewijk van Deyssel, in which he wrote "the novel of Mr. Couperus is a good and a literary work".

[3]: p.132  Couperus now started reading Paul Bourget's novel Un coeur de femme, which inspired him during the writing of his novella Extaze ("Ecstasy").

Dutch critics wrote divergent reviews about Extaze: writer and journalist Henri Borel said that, the book was something like a young boy messing with an egg, while Lodewijk van Deyssel found it great.

In Florence they stayed in a pension close to the Santa Maria Novella; here Couperus wrote in November 1893 a sketch, Annonciatie, a literary description of the painting of the same name by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi in the Uffizi gallery.

Couperus and his wife returned to the Netherlands, where Elisabeth Couperus-Baud made a translation of George Moore's Vain Fortune; they went to live in the house at the Jacob van der Doesstraat 123.

Couperus now started working on what was to become Wereldvrede ("World Peace") and wrote a translation of Flaubert's La Tentation de Saint Antoine.

[3]: p.184–185  In 1896 Hoge troeven ("High Trumps") was published with a book cover designed by Hendrik Petrus Berlage, and in April 1896 Couperus started writing Metamorfoze ("Metamorphosis").

[3]: p.206  With Elisabeth Couperus-Baud he left the Netherlands in May 1898 for a short trip to London, where they met friends and visited Ascot Racecourse; Alexander Teixeira de Mattos introduced Couperus and his wife during a high tea to English journalists and literary people.

Meanwhile, to pay his bills, he wrote Van oude menschen, de dingen, die voorbij gaan ("Of old people, the things that pass").

In May 1907 Aan den weg der vreugde, a novella Couperus wrote while staying at Bagni di Lucca, was published in Groot Nederland; he received another letter from L.J.

In August 1908 Couperus and his wife started a pension lodge in Nice and placed an advert in the New York Herald to attract future guests.

In Rome Couperus visited Museo Barracco di Scultura Antica, San Saba, the Villa Madama and the Colosseum (among other things).

Couperus wrote a sketch called De jonge held ("The Young Hero") about the son of friends in Italy who returned wounded from the front.

He also had a meeting with Dutch actress Theo Mann-Bouwmeester, who suggested to change Langs lijnen van geleidelijkheid into a play; although this plan did not come into reality for Couperus it opened possibilities for his books in future.

Couperus later published his travelogues (made during his travels to Africa, Dutch East Indies and Japan) as a result in De Haagsche Post, as well as many epigrams.

As from December 1916 he restarted writing his weekly sketch in Het Vaderland, for example Romeinsche portretten (Roman portraits), during which he was inspired by Martial and Juvenal.

Meanwhile, het Hofstadtoneel (Residence Theater) was about to perform the stage version (made by Elisabeth Couperus-Baud) of Eline Vere; this play received bad product reviews.

In Africa he visited Algiers, travelled to Constantine, Biskra, Touggourt and Timgad and then continued his journey to Tunis and the ruins of Carthage, where he met a pupil of Marie-Louis-Antoine-Gaston Boissier.