his experiences working aboard ship as a boy, colloquially called a "sea mouse." Precisely because in the war years, he had been regarded as close to a national hero, quite a few people in the Netherlands resented his decision to write in English and so felt betrayed by and abandoned by him. Sales of his books in the English-speaking world soared, but his reputation in his home country plunged and took years to recover. For his part, de Hartog continued to regard himself as and to take pride in being a Dutchman, and many of his later books had Dutch protagonists and themes. Indeed, for many people outside the Netherlands, the books became a major source of information about Dutch society, culture, and modern history. In 1952, while visiting New York, he encountered a play that he had written while he had still been in hiding during the war and had sold the rights to while he was in England. The play was called The Fourposter. A New York Times reviewer called it "the most civilized comedy we have had on marriage for years." It went on to win de Hartog a Tony Award at the 6th annual Tony Awards Show for Best Play. Columbia Pictures also made The Fourposter into a partially animated movie, starring Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer. The scenes from the play were linked by cartoon sequences between them. The film was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for its cinematography. Later, in 1966, it became the musical I Do! I Do!. The play also appeared under its original name at the Theatre New Brunswick in 1974. Jan and Marjorie de Hartog took a 90-foot Dutch ship (called The Rival) and transformed it into a houseboat, which they made their home. During the severe floods in the Netherlands of 1953, The Rival was transformed into a floating hospital about which wrote in The Little Ark. Move to America In the late 1950s, the de Hartogs decided to take The Rival to the US on the deck of a freighter. They had difficulty locating a dock with cranes large enough to lift the houseboat from the freighter, but they eventually made for Houston, Texas. They decided that they liked it there and so stayed. While Jan was out lecturing at the University of Houston on playwriting, Marjorie was looking for community volunteer opportunities