Quelltext der Seite Benutzer:Rafael Zink/The Miniaturist – Die Magie der kleinen Dinge

{{for|the 2003 novel|The Miniaturist (Kunal Basu novel)}}
{{infobox book
| name           = The Miniaturist
| author         = [[Jessie Burton]]
| image          = File:TheMiniaturist.jpg
| caption        = First edition (UK) with quotation from [[S. J. Watson]]
| audio_read_by  = 
| cover_artist   = Katie Tooke, Andersen M Studio<ref name=cover>{{cite web|title=Designing the cover for The Miniaturist: the more you look, the more you see|url=http://www.picador.com/blog/february-2014/the-miniaturist-book-cover-design|publisher=[[Picador (imprint)|Picador]]|accessdate=4 July 2015|date=20 February 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150705210825/http://www.picador.com/blog/february-2014/the-miniaturist-book-cover-design|archivedate=5 July 2015}}</ref>
| country        = United Kingdom
| language       = English
| genre          = [[Historical fiction]]
| set_in         = [[Amsterdam]], 1680s
| published      = 2014, [[Ecco Press|Ecco]] (US), [[Picador (imprint)|Picador]] (UK)
| media_type     = 
| pages          = 400
| awards         = 
| isbn           = 978-0-06-230681-4
| notes          =
| exclude_cover  = 
| website        =
}}
'''''The Miniaturist''''' is the 2014 [[debut novel]] of [[England|English]] [[Actor|actress]] and [[author]] [[Jessie Burton]].<ref name=ambitious/> An international bestseller, it was the focus of a publishers' bidding war at the 2013 [[London Book Fair]].<ref name=ambitious/> Set in [[Amsterdam]] in 1686–87, the novel was inspired by [[Petronella Oortman]]'s [[doll's house]] on display at the [[Rijksmuseum]]. It does not otherwise attempt to be a [[biographical novel]].<ref name=usa>{{cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2014/08/29/jessie-burton-on-petronella-oortman-and-her-beautiful-cabinet-house/14757513/|title=Jessie Burton on the dollhouse that inspired her novel|last=Spiegelman|first=Ian|date=29 August 2014|work=[[USA Today]]|accessdate=29 January 2015}}</ref>

==Synopsis==

It is 1686 in the Netherlands. Nella (Petronella) Oortman is eighteen, living in a small town. Her late father squandered the family’s wealth and she makes an arranged marriage to Johannes Brandt, who is thirty-nine, a rich, respected Amsterdam merchant. The simple ceremony is in her home town, and Johannes returns to Amsterdam the same day; the marriage is not consummated.

A month later, as arranged, Nella goes to his house in Amsterdam to join him. He is not there when she arrives, but she meets the other members of the household. Marin is his severe, unmarried sister. Cornelia is the maid, a little older than Nella, more spirited than maids in the countryside. Otto, Johannes’ servant and business assistant, aged about thirty, is, to Nella’s astonishment, an African.

Life becomes difficult for Nella, and there are things she does not understand: tension between Johannes and Marin; sounds of movement at night. It is a house where people listen outside doors and peep through keyholes. Nella spies in Marin’s room, and finds an unsigned love-note sent to her. Johannes is usually out or abroad; he rejects Nella’s caresses. But he gives her a marvellous present: a cabinet house, an eerie replica of the house they live in. She is given generous funds with which to buy more items for the house, and she orders some from a miniaturist. The order is delivered by Jack Philips, a beautiful young man from England, whom Johannes seems to know.

One day Nella, trying to get closer to her husband, makes a surprise visit to his office. She discovers him receiving oral sex from Jack. Marin admits that she knew of this and arranged the marriage because a wife protects them. The punishment for sodomy is death by drowning. Later, while Johannes is abroad, Jack delivers another packet from the miniaturist. In the fracas that ensues, he stabs one of Johannes’ beloved dogs to death and, in a scuffle with Otto, is stabbed with his own dagger. Though the injury is not serious, Otto, afraid of the legal consequences, flees the country.

At present, Johannes is handling an important business affair, the sale of a large stock of sugar belonging to Franz and Agnes Meermans. As young men, Johannes and Franz were equals, working in the Treasury. Franz was in love with Marin, but his marriage proposal was rejected. This was Marin’s free decision, but Franz believes that Johannes forbade the marriage. Johannes has now excelled him in status and wealth, and the sale is financially important to the Meermans. It is also important to Johannes whose wealth has, it seems, lessened, but it seems he is not giving it his full attention. The Meermans go the warehouse where their sugar is stored to check on it – and come across Johannes having sex with a man against the warehouse wall. The man is Jack; he claims he was forced to submit. Franz makes a report to the authorities. Johannes is arrested, tried, and sentenced to death.

For several months, Marin has been concealing that she is pregnant. When the time comes, she refuses to have a midwife, so that the birth can be kept secret. Nella and Cornelia attend her, often not knowing what to do. The birth is extremely painful and Marin dies soon afterwards. She told them that Franz is the father, but they can see that the baby is Otto’s daughter. Three days after Marin dies, Johannes is executed. Otto returns, to see his child. Nella has sold the sugar to a confectioner whose wife is a lifelong friend of Cornelia’s. A new phase of life begins in the house.

At first, the miniaturist sends Nella the items she has ordered, works of exquisite craftsmanship, but soon begins to send items not ordered, or not yet. Parcels are found on the doorstep in the morning. She sends, inexplicably, a cradle. Other things show an intimate, uncanny knowledge of the house. For example, the figure of Marin shows that her austere clothes are fur-lined, a secret Cornelia has told Nella. Later, the belly of the figure has the curve of pregnancy. Nella discovers that the miniaturist is a woman, whom she sees watching her intensely in public places, but vanishes when she tries to approach her. She wonders, “Are these pieces echoes or presages – or, quite simply, a lucky guess?” Later, she thinks, “I have been watched and guarded, taught and taunted … I thought she was stealing my life, but in truth she opened its compartments and let me look inside.”  She discovers that the miniaturist has a similar place in the lives of other women, but the true nature of her power is a mystery.

== History ==
[[File:Dolls’ house of Petronella Oortman.jpg|thumb|right|The doll's house that inspired the novel]]
Burton, who had studied English literature at the [[University of Oxford]] before embarking on an acting career, wrote the novel over a period of four years while supporting herself as an actress and [[Personal assistant|PA]] in the [[City of London]].<ref name=usa/><ref name=smh/> She came up with the idea while on holiday in Amsterdam, where she viewed Petronella Oortman's doll house at the Rijksmuseum, and undertook extensive research on 17th-century Amsterdam, studying books, cookbooks, [[Dutch Golden Age painting]]s, maps, and wills.<ref name=ambitious/><ref name=usa/><ref name=smh>{{cite web |url=http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/new-author-jessie-burton-has-found-success-with-the-miniaturist-20140627-zry8h.html|title=New author Jessie Burton has found success with 'The Miniaturist'|first=Linda|last=Morris|date=5 June 2014|accessdate=27 November 2016|work=[[Sydney Morning Herald]]}}</ref> She trimmed the word count from 120,000 words to 80,000 words after participating in a creative writing course in 2011 and to better match the marketing target readership.<ref name=smh/>

The novel was the focus of a publishers' bidding war at the 2013 [[London Book Fair]].<ref name=ambitious/> Of the 11 publishers that vied for the book, [[Picador (imprint)|Picador]] won the UK and British Commonwealth rights for a reported six-figure sum.<ref name=smh/><ref name=curtis/>

The UK cover design is a photograph of an actual miniature doll's house commissioned by Picador, which reflects characters and elements in the novel.<ref name=cover/><ref name=curtis>{{cite web |url=http://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/the-miniaturist-jessie-burton/|title=Ex-CBC student Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist is out today|date=3 July 2014|accessdate=27 November 2016|publisher=[[Curtis Brown (literary agents)|Curtis Brown Creative]]}}</ref>

==Publication history==
By 2016, the book had sold over 1 million copies in 37 countries.<ref name=bbc/>

==Reception==
While applauding the tone and setting of the novel, some reviews cited the shallowness of the characterizations. ''[[The Guardian]]'' and ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' reviews observe that Nella is drawn more like a worldly, [[Feminism|feminist]] 21st-century girl than a naïve 17th-century one.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/29/the-miniaturist-jessie-burton-review|title=The Miniaturist review – Jessie Burton's much-hyped but unconvincing debut|first=Rachel|last=Cooke|date=29 June 2014|accessdate=27 November 2016|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref><ref  name=trib>{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/ct-prj-miniaturist-jessie-burton-20140829-story.html |title=Review: 'The Miniaturist' by Jessie Burton|first=Carol |last=Memmott|date=29 August 2014|access-date=27 November 2016 |newspaper=[[The Chicago Tribune]]}}</ref> The ''Chicago Tribune'' adds: "[The main characters are] complex and complicated and suffer terrible tragedies, but Burton doesn't give us a deep enough look into their psyches. I'd read 100 additional pages just to get inside Johannes' head".<ref name=trib/>

== Awards and honours ==
*2014 [[Waterstones]] "Book of the Year" winner for ''The Miniaturist''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30243531|title=Miniaturist novel named Waterstones book of 2014|date=1 December 2014|accessdate=23 December 2014|author=Tim Masters|publisher=BBC News}}</ref>
*2014 [[Specsavers National Book Awards]]: New Writer of the Year for ''The Miniaturist''<ref name=ambitious>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30251905|title=Jessie Burton: I never thought of The Miniaturist as ambitious|date=2 December 2014|accessdate=23 December 2014|work=[[BBC News]]}}</ref>
*2014 [[Specsavers National Book Awards]]: Book of the Year for ''The Miniaturist''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30575976|title=Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist voted Specsavers Book of the Year|date=22 December 2014|accessdate=23 December 2014|publisher=BBC News}}</ref>

In 2015 the novel also received a nomination for the [[Desmond Elliott Prize]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-32160005|title= The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton up for £10,000 Desmond Elliott book prize|date=2 April 2015|accessdate=27 November 2016|publisher=BBC News}}</ref>

== Adaptations ==
{{main|The Miniaturist (TV series)}}
[[BBC One]] debuted a three-part, 2.5-hour [[The Miniaturist (TV series)|television adaptation]] of the novel in the UK on [[Boxing Day|26 December]] 2017.<ref>{{cite web|last1=BBC website|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09lgqt5|title=BBC: The Miniaturist |accessdate=14 December 2017}}</ref><ref name=bbc>{{cite web |url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2016/the-miniaturist|title= BBC One announces adaption of Jessie Burton’s sumptuous period thriller The Miniaturist (press release)|date=28 August 2016|accessdate=27 November 2016|publisher=[[BBC One]]}}</ref><ref name=pan>{{cite web |url=https://www.panmacmillan.com/blog/january-2015/the-miniaturist-by-jessie-burton-to-be-adapted-for-tv|title=Cast announced for TV adaptation of Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist|date=10 April 2017|accessdate=10 October 2017|publisher=Pan Macmillan}}</ref> The adaptation was written by John Brownlow, directed by Guillem Morales, and produced by [[George S. J. Faber|The Forge]] in conjunction with the BBC and [[Masterpiece (TV series)|Masterpiece]].<ref name=bbc/><ref name=bbc2>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/the-miniaturist|title=Casting revealed for BBC One’s gripping adaptation of The Miniaturist|date=7 April 2017|work=BBC|accessdate=10 October 2017}}</ref>  The series was filmed on location Leiden in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It starred [[Anya Taylor-Joy]] as Nella, [[Romola Garai]] as Marin, [[Emily Berrington]] as The Miniaturist, and [[Alex Hassell]] as Johannes.<ref name=pan/> Episode 1 was seen by 4.52 million viewers and Episode 2 by fewer than 4.31 million viewers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-top-30/|title=Weekly top 30 programmes - BARB|website=www.barb.co.uk}}</ref>

==See also==
*''[[Girl with a Pearl Earring (novel)|Girl with a Pearl Earring]]'', an historical novel based in 17th-century [[Delft]].

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
*{{IMDb title|tt6889090}}
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[[Category:2014 British novels]]
[[Category:British historical novels]]
[[Category:Novels set in Amsterdam]]
[[Category:Novels set in the 1680s]]
[[Category:Novels set in the Dutch Golden Age]]
[[Category:2014 debut novels]]