A descendant of an old French Protestant family, Busken Huet studied theology at Leiden and became pastor of the Walloon chapel at Haarlem but resigned because of his modernist views. He turned to literary criticism and from 1863 to 1865 was an editor of the influential literary magazine De gids (“The Guide”). After many disappointments, he left The Netherlands for the Dutch East Indies 【now Indonesia】, where he worked as a journalist. For the last years of his life he lived in Paris.

As a critic, Busken Huet took the French dean of critics, Sainte-Beuve, and the Danish Georg Brandes as his guides and sought to bring Dutch literature into closer touch with other European cultures. He wrote brilliantly about the Dutch classics, about the minor Dutch poets, and about both the classic and modern literature of other countries. He castigated some of the Dutch writers of his own time severely for their narrowness and dullness. Busken Huet collected his most important critical writings in 25 volumes entitled Litterarische fantasiën en kritieken (1868–88; “Literary Fantasies and Criticisms”). They are still read with enjoyment for their style and acute perception. His history of Dutch culture in the 17th century, Het land van Rembrandt (1882–84; “The Country of Rembrandt”), remains a classic.