Bookstore Kooyker, drawn by Eric Coolen.
Theo de With
To lead
The Leiden bookstore Kooyker has existed for 160 years. This anniversary is celebrated with a special edition of a story by Maarten Biesheuvel.
In 1863, Amsterdammer Cornelis Kooyker came to Leiden to open a bookstore. Actually, the history goes back even further, because he took over an existing store. Since then there have been many owners and mergers.
After 125 years, Kooyker moved from the Nieuwe Rijn to the Breestraat. Things didn’t always go well. In 2014, bookstore chain Polare, which Kooyker was part of at the time, went bankrupt.
Willeke van der Meer took over the Leiden store and moved to a smaller building in Breestraat in 2015. “We’ve been doing well ever since,” she says. “It is a well-organized and attractive building. We have intensive contact with readers and writers regularly visit.”
On the occasion of the anniversary, Van der Meer has had a booklet made with a previously unpublished story by Maarten Biesheuvel. “I was able to obtain that through publisher Aart Hoekman, who was good friends with Biesheuvel. It is such a typical Biesheuvel story. It will later appear in a book. We have now had a special edition of a thousand copies made, which we will give to our customers free of charge while supplies last.