The Black Tulip - Softcover

Dumas, Alexandre

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1452854890 ISBN 13: 9781452854892

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010

Synopsis

This is a historical novel written by Dumas, pere (the father), which begins with a historical event - the 1672 lynching of the Dutch Grand Pensionary (a kind of Prime-Minister) and his brother, by a mob. The main plot takes place in the following eighteen months.

About this title

About the Author

Celebrated French playwright and novelist of the Romantic era. Dumas wrote extensively and there are about 1200 volumes to his name. Primarily famous for his exciting and vibrant historical novels, he also penned memoirs rich in historical detail.

Review

The black tulip has come to be synonymous with the concept of artificial demand: that anything, if arbitrarily deemed rare or valuable enough, can become so expensive that its real worth is forgotten. We have come to know of certain black tulips in our own time, including the demand which was created when banks started buying up mortgaged-backed securities and the resulting fall-out. Alexandre Dumas's The Black Tulip takes us back to an early example of this in seventeenth-century Holland, where the cultivation of tulips of all colors was a pastime of the wealthy. The Haarlem Horticultural Society devises a contest to award the person who can grow a black tulip a prize of one hundred thousand guilders (which seemed to have been a great deal of money at that time). Naturally, because greedy human beings are involved, the race to be the first one to grow the black tulip compels certain 'tulip-fanciers' to go to any lengths - including incrimination - to win the prize. Cornelius van Baerle is an affluent tulip-fancier who has successfully cultivated many types of tulips. He takes up the black tulip challenge and gets very close but his envious neighbor, Mynheer Isaac Boxtel, discovers a means to get van Baerle imprisoned and hopefully executed so that Boxtel may grow the tulip and win the prize. Van Baerle would be ruined were it not for the beneficence and creative scheming of the jailer's daughter, Rosa, who falls in love with van Baerle when he is locked up in her father's jail, and maneuvers to save both him and the tulip. The Black Tulip's beginning is rather tough going for a modern listener, especially one not familiar with, or particularly interested in, the complicated political machinations of Holland four centuries ago. Dumas uses a rather lengthy, melodramatic exposition to explain the background of his main character, Cornelius van Baerle, and the ways in which this background was used to land van Baerle in prison on trumped-up charges, all in an effort to steal away the prize. If The Black Tulip were written today, there is no doubt that there would be less discussion of this old Dutch political wrangling, but once listeners make their way through this, the twists of the plot draw us in and the exposition is neatly tied to the story's final thrilling conclusion. A fascinating story, intertwined with a true-love tale and some truly funny moments - including Rosa's sarcastic replies to van Baerle when he tries to convince her that he loves her more than the tulip - make The Black Tulip withstand the more than hundred and fifty years that have passed since it was published, and the emergence of more modern examples of artificial demand. Peter Joyce, a stage, radio, and television actor, revels in the reading of Dumas's characters and this high-stakes story. He expresses the excitement of certain crucial moments - will Rosa succeed in convincing the prince of Boxtel's treachery in time? - through his beautiful and deep voice, carrying the listener with him through the telling. --Joanna Theiss, SoundCommentary

Alexandre Dumas is known mostly for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. His novel The Black Tulip deserves to be better known, and Naxos AudioBooks has done something about it. In an excellently real audiobook, we are taken to late seventeenth-century Holland. There, the conflict between the Dutch and France is one theme of the book, and the obsession with tulips is another. Treason, deceit, greed and love drive the story of The Black Tulip. Peter Joyce gives it a highly dramatic reading that makes listening to the story almost compulsive. --Alide Kohlhaas, Seniors Review

The quest to grow a black tulip doesn't have the same narrative appeal as Dumas's COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO or THREE MUSKETEERS, but it provides adventure enough for those who love the great melodramas of the nineteenth century. Peter Joyce delivers a fine rendition of Dumas's meaty prose and is especially good at depicting villains and brutal jailers, less effective at conveying his nubile heroine. Although this is a lesser work by Dumas, the author s judicious detachment, voiced so well in Joyce's calm and untroubled delivery, holds the promise throughout that innocence will triumph and justice eventually prevail: The villain will be vanquished, and the power of the black tulip will somehow open the prison doors and unite the fateful lovers. --D.A.W. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1452854890
• ISBN 13: 9781452854892
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 164