HavelaarMax Havelaar
Dutch · Multatuli
The angriest book of its century, and one of the funniest.
The opening, set exactly as it reads in the app.
Multatuli hid one of the angriest books of the nineteenth century inside one of the funniest. Before its fury can reach Java it must pass through Droogstoppel, the smug Amsterdam coffee-broker — a comic monster fit to stand beside any in Dickens — who damns himself with every complacent sentence. The satire is merciless and the indignation incandescent, and the book pricked a nation’s conscience without once ceasing to be art. It remains the great novel of the Dutch language.
Read. Listen. Understand. Speak.
No streaks, no points, no badges. You read a real book, and the edition does the quiet work of keeping you in it.
The original and the translation, side by side.
The author’s words on one side, a clear English translation on the other, aligned line by line. Two columns on iPad, stacked on iPhone.
Every line, in a native voice.
Hear how the language actually sounds — its weight and its rhythm — not just how it looks on the page.
Notes for the line you’re on.
Tap any line for the grammar, the words, and the context behind it — written by us, for this text. An editor at your elbow, not a dictionary.
Read aloud, and hear how you did.
Read a line yourself and the edition scores it on your phone — the whole line first, then sound by sound. Your voice never leaves the device.
The particulars.
- The text
- Max Havelaar, Multatuli
- Translation
- Public-domain Dutch (Multatuli, d. 1887; published 1860). English translation © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC.
- Pricing
- A free sample, then a one-time $29.99 unlock. No subscription, no ads, no accounts.
- Privacy
- Speech analysis runs on device. Your reading and your voice never leave your phone.
- Universal
- iPhone & iPad. Side-by-side columns on the larger screen.