On October 16th, Oscar Wilde was born 170 years ago; reason for Mayflower Bookshop to organize a festival on November 10th about this fascinating 19th poet and playwright! Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one […]
On Thursday December 19 at 1930, Mayflower’s Freek Bouricius will continue Mayflower’s Christmas tradition with a reading of a slightly shortened version of Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. This timeless Christmas story is the perfect preparation for your Christmas!
Dinner for One, a classic on German television for over 40 years (but less well known in Britain) is a short sketch picturing Miss Sophie’s 90th birthday party, featuring her butler James in the roles of her four guests, who have all passed away… For the fifth and last time, this hilarious sketch will be […]
From January 20th to 26th, the annual Leidse Blues & Jazz Week returns, and once again, Mayflower Bookshop is proud to be part of this exciting event. This year, we are transforming our bookshop into a cozy concert venue, bringing live music to our beloved space. We are thrilled to welcome the Theo Naishtat Trio […]
New series: Children’s Classics ‘Die jeeste ende daventuren’ (Floris and Blancheflour) Medieval ‘young adult’ stories – Leo van Zanen (lecture in Dutch) After our series ‘Great Books’ and ‘Great Loves’ we start 2025 with a new series: ‘Children’s Classics’. This series includes much-loved international masterpieces such Winnie-the-Pooh, Pinocchio, Sans Famille and Emil und die Detektive, […]
Nice and Naughty – the rebellious children’s verse of Annie M.G. Schmidt As second event in our series Children’s Classics, we cannot omit Dutch author Annie M.G. Schmidt and her rebellious children’s verses. During the ’50s Annie M.G. Schmidt (1911-1995) published eleven collections of verse for children, altogether more than 300 titles. The poem ‘Ik […]
On Monday April 21, Easter Monday, Mayflower Bookshop hosts her annual commemoration of the Bard, on the day closest to his death date and (probable) birthday, April 23. Consisting of both commemoration and a lecture in our series Children’s Classics, we offer the following programme: 16.00 Meeting point at Mayflower Bookshop 16.05 Walk to sonnet […]
Mayflower Bookshop American special (English spoken) – Sold to the lowest bidder? Pleun Bouricius PhD, born and bred in the Netherlands, has lived in the USA for over 40 years. A graduate of Harvard, she also worked in jobs as diverse as truck driver, university lecturer and program director and lived in several states before […]
Mayflower Bookshop invites you to a literary workshop (in English) to explore Edith Wharton’s world of wealth, ambition, and social constraint. This workshop will investigate how Wharton’s novels, especially The Age of Innocence, expose the tensions of New York’s Gilded Age, offering a sharp critique of its opulence and rigid expectations. Through discussion and analysis, we will […]
Coming up - Pinocchio, a world-class classic Fourth event in our series Children’s classics Carmen van den Bergh On Sunday May 25, Carmen van den Bergh, associate professor of Italian at Leiden University, focuses on the famous story of Pinocchio, a masterpiece of Italian literature. With over 300 translations, it is not only the most […]
Children’s Classics 5: the unruly world of Winnie-the-Pooh Any series on children’s books, must, of course include that wonderful of bears, Winnie-the Pooh, hero of the books by A.A. Milne. Who hasn’t grown up with Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo? Who doesn’t remember phrases such as: “It’s time for […]
Coming up: Musical fairy tale “Peter and the wolf” at Mayflower Bookshop “The duck that quacked in the wolf’s belly” “Peter and the wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev takes centre stage at Mayflower Bookshop in Leiden on Sunday, August 31. At 4pm that day, expert in Slavic literature and languages Louis Smit will give a lecture […]