The Miniaturist is the 2014 debut novel of English actress and author Jessie Burton.[2] An international bestseller, it was the focus of a publishers' bidding war at the 2013 London Book Fair.[2] Set in Amsterdam in 1686–87, the novel was inspired by Petronella Oortman's doll's house on display at the Rijksmuseum. It does not otherwise attempt to be a biographical novel.[3]