Physician, psychiatrist and writer. Married, (? Children). Born in Haarlem, the Netherlands, Van Eeden trained as a physician at the University of Amsterdam and after studying hypnotism in Paris and Nancy, began specializing in psychiatry in 1892. A socialist and labor activist, van Eeden was also attracted to the utopian ideals of Henry David Thoreau. In 1903, he founded "Walden," an experimental cooperative community in Bussum, a small town near Amsterdam, but the colony went bankrupt in 1907. He also started a weekly paper, De Pionier (The Pioneer), devoted to the working class issues and helped found De Nieuwe Gids, (The New Guide) a socialist journal. Van Eeden was also a poet, playwright and novelist whose works included De Kleine Johannes or Little John (1887), The Quest (1911) and The Bride of Dreams (1913). His autobiography, Happy Humanity was published in 1909.