The Seed and the Sower The Seed and the Sower The Seed and the Sower is a book by South African writer Laurens van der Post, consisting of three interrelated stories blended into a novel, first published in 1963. The novel was filmed in 1983 as "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence", directed by Nagisa Oshima and starring David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano. The first story is set in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in Java during World War II and is a first person account of the relationship between John Lawrence, a British officer, and Sergeant Hara, one of the camp’s
Laurens van der Hem "Eugenius-atlas" or the "Atlas Blauw-van der Hem" and is today kept at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The "Atlas Maior" was popular in Amsterdam when it was published in installments starting in 1649 (last volume in 1673) in 11 gold-embossed volumes. To save money, collectors could purchase it plain without handpainted embellishments. However, Laurens van der Hem went a step further and ordered his maps unbound, and proceeded to have Blaeu's best professional map-finisher, Dirk Jansz van Santen, colour them by hand. The eleven volumes of Blaeu's atlas form the main body of the Van der Hem's personal copy,