Call Number:

C0936

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 2 boxes
• 0.8 linear feet

Language:

Dutch; Flemish

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); P. Voorhoeve Collection of Batak Manuscript Translations, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1953-1985 (inclusive)

Creator:

Voorhoeve, Peter

Form:

Manuscripts -- 20th century., Typescripts -- 20th century., Letters -- 20th century., and Correspondence -- 20th century

Abstract:

The P. Voorhoeve Collection of Batak Manuscript Translations consists primarily of English translations of Batak manuscripts by Petrus Voorhooeve. Also includes some related articles (drafts) and catalogue descriptions.

Petrus Voorhoeve was born in 1899 [place unknown]. He worked as a government linguist in the Batak country in the isle of Sumatra from 1937 until the outbreak of World War II. He was the keeper of Oriental printed books and manuscripts at Leiden University Library in 1952 when the late Professor Kaare Gronbech asked him to catalogue the Batak manuscripts in Denmark. Afterward Dr. Voorhoeve cataloged the Batak manuscripts in the Chester Beatty Library (Dublin) and in The Royal Library (Copenhagen). He traveled extensively throughout his career to other European and American libraries to perform research on other Indonesian manuscript holdings. He was invited to Princeton University in the 1980s to research and provide catalogue descriptions for the John F. Mason Collection of Batak Manuscripts.

The collection consists primarily of Voorhoeve's English translations of some of the manuscripts in the the John. F. Mason Collection of Batak Manuscripts. Also included are catalogue descriptions, a copy of a Batak Pustaha, and related articles by Voorhoeve and others regarding the John F. Mason Collection of Batak Manuscripts and the Princeton Batak bark manuscripts included in the Robert Garrett Collection and the Scheide Library.

The translations are arranged numerically: their numbers correspond to the manuscript numbers in the John F. Mason Collection of Batak Manuscripts.