Piet Paaltjens

During his student days, he had some of his poetry published in student magazines under the pen name of Piet Paaltjens, around whom a playful but elaborate mystification was created as Haverschmidt kept his poetry separate from his "serious" prose and sermons, not unlike Nicolaas Beets.

He became a prime suspect for being the anonymous author of the Oera Linda Book,[1] the inferred reason being a practical joke[2] (a parody of the Bible to lampoon fundamentalist Christians).

This would have prevented Haverschmidt and his collaborators (if they were indeed the authors of the supposedly millennia-old text) from unmasking their hoax, which consequently completely backfired.

Haverschmidt became progressively more depressed, especially after his wife's death in 1891, and ultimately committed suicide in 1894.

A section of Snikken en grimlachjes has been translated into English by Jacob Lowland as Everlastings (1850–1852) (Amsterdam: Aarts, 1982)