Based on the 14th century Low German figure Till Eulenspiegel, de Coster's 1867 novel recounts his allegorical adventures as those of a Flemish prankster, Thyl Ulenspiegel, during the Reformation wars in the Netherlands.
Charles-Théodore-Henri de Coster was a Belgian author; though the son of a Flemish father and Walloon mother, he wrote in French. He died on May 7, 1879 (aged 51) in Brussels, Belgium.