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The Black Tulip
  

The Black Tulip (Hardcover)

by Alexandre Dumas (Author) "On the 20th of August, 1672, the city of the Hague, always so lively, so neat, and so trim that one might believe every day..." (more)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Alexandre Dumas's novels are notable for their suspense and excitement, their foul deeds, hairsbreadth escapes, and glorious victories. In The Black Tulip (1850), the shortest of Dumas's most famous tales, the real hero is no Musketeer, but a flower. The novel - a deceptively simple story - is set in Holland in 1672, and weaves the historical events surrounding the brutal murder of John de Witte and his brother Cornelius into a tale of romantic love. The novel is also a timeless political allegory in which Dumas, drawing on the violence and crimes of history, makes his case against tyranny and puts all his energies into creating a symbol of justice and tolerance: the fateful tulipa negra. This new edition reprints the first, classic English translation. David Coward sets the novel in the context of its author's life, the turbulent history of the Dutch Republic, and the amazing `tulipmania' of the seventeenth century which brought wealth to some and ruin to many. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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First Sentence
On the 20th of August, 1672, the city of the Hague, always so lively, so neat, and so trim that one might believe every day to be Sunday, with its shady park, with its tall trees, spreading over its Gothic houses, with its canals like large mirrors, in which its steeples and its almost Eastern cupolas are reflected, - the city of the Hague, the capital of the Seven United Provinces, was swelling in all its arteries with a black and red stream of hurried, panting, and restless citizens, who, with their knives in their girdles, muskets on their shoulders, or sticks in their hands, were pushing on to the Buytenhof, a terrible prison, the grated windows of which are still shown, where, on the charge of attempted murder preferred against him by the surgeon Tyckelaer, Cornelius de Witt, the brother of the Grand Pensionary of Holland was confined. Read the first page
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6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars Dumas is indeed the master story teller!, April 8 2007
By Misfit (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: The Black Tulip (Paperback)
Who would have thought that a book, with a simple plot about two rivals trying racing to be the first to grow a black tulip, could be so unputdownable? There are no lords and ladies, no swashbuckling heros, no evil cardinals or Miladys -- nothing but a darn good yarn, and a very sweet love story.

Dumas is just brilliant (as always) and his dialogue (as always) is among the finest I've ever come across. A very quick, albeit enjoyable, read. Highly recommended.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Flower power, Nov 5 2003
By Harry Hughes (Aberystwyth, Wales) - See all my reviews
This book is not to be recomended by those who want an exciting swashbuckling tale on a par with Dumas' incomparable musketeer stories. It is to this end that many reviewers and readers of this book leave with an unfriendly opinion of this book. Although it is Dumas' last book, it is in my opinion one of his best. It tells the heartwarming tale of Cornelius van Baerle who lives purely to try and cultivate the rare and wonderous black tulip. However when Cornelius' godfather is asassinated he, without knowing it, enters a dangerous game of cat and mouse with his jealous neighbour (and tulip fancier) Issac Boxtel who has seen Cornelius being given a letter by his godfather. To this end Cornelius is jailed whereupon he falls in love with Rosa, the beautiful daughter of his jailer. Rosa aids Cornelius to cultivate his tulip inside the jail and they eventually succeed only to have it cruely stolen by Boxtel. I wont ruin the ending by telling you what happens, suffice to say I feel that for the first time in his writing career Dumas wrote a "Happy ever after" ending which irritated me to some extent. I do love this book and it earns its place alongside Dumas' great novels, my main reason for loving it so much is its final lines, it is one of the greatest pieces of philosophy I have ever heard, but it is important to read the book to fully understand its meaning, I know it so well that I can reel it off the top of my head thus, " ... he wrote above his door these lines that Grotius had carved on the wall of his prison on the day of his escape: "Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right never to say: I am too happy"
To me these words have a beautiful resonance that is not only lovely to think of but accurate as well, I feel that anyone who reads this book and fails to be moved, if by nothing else by the bathos of the denoument, then they have ultimately failed to appreciate the true beauty and skill of one of the finest novelists to ever pick up a writing implement. This book is a thing of beauty, perhaps the tulip itself is a simple microcosm of the book, to start off it appears to be nothing special, but in the hands of someone who is aware of its true worth it is as priceless as the world itself.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Good, Aug 29 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: The Black Tulip (Hardcover)
The sentences in the beginning of the book are very long. So long that you might lose track of what it is that you're reading ;). However, if you look past that and keep reading I'm sure that you'll find that it really does get better. The only bone I have to pick is with the love interest Rosa. She is a rather weak female character if you ask me. She's got the whole swooning thing going on, and while I realize that this book was written a century before a Women's Rights Movement, I'm still annoyed that women's characters were either conniving and murderous or swoony and stupid. Otherwise the story is quite good; you're totally rooting for Cornelius and his black tulip!
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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great book!
This is my second Dumas novel, the first being "The Count of Monte Cristo". This is another excellent tale. Dumas weaves countless details into his plot. Read more
Published on Feb 9 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Black Tulip grows on you
Having read two of Dumas' longer novels, I was anxious to read one of his shorter ones.

To keep it shorter, there are fewer characters, and therefore the interaction between... Read more

Published on Dec 9 2002 by Ernest J. Moosa Jr.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Subtle Novel
A blend of politics, human psychology, subtle romance, and (both real and fictionalized) history. The beginning of the novel is interesting but a little dense and readers may get... Read more
Published on Sep 12 2002 by amilas2345

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