The Black Tulip

by Alexandre Dumas, Robin Buss (Translator), Robin Buss (Introduction), Robin Buss (Noted by)

Overview

Cornelius von Baerle lives only to cultivate the elusive black tulip and win a magnificent prize for its creation. But when his powerful godfather is assassinated, the unwitting Cornelius becomes caught up in a deadly political intrigue. Falsely accused of high treason by a bitter rival, Cornelius is condemned to life in prison. His only comfort is Rosa, the jailer's beautiful daughter, who helps him concoct a plan to grow the black tulip in secret. As Robin Buss explains in his informative introduction, Dumas infuses his story with elements from the history of the Dutch Republic (including two brutal murders) and Holland's seventeenth-century "tulipmania" phenomenon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140448924
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/26/2003
Series:	Penguin Classics Series
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	85,965
Product dimensions:	7.54(w) x 5.02(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) was the son of Napoleon’s famous general Dumas. A prolific author, his body of work includes a number of popular classics, including The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask.

Robin Buss (1939–2006) was a writer and translator who worked for the Independent on Sunday and as television critic for the Times Educational Supplement. He was also the translator of a number of volumes for Penguin Classics.

Table of Contents

I. A Grateful People
II. The Two Brothers
III. The Pupil of John de Witt
IV. The Murderers
V. The Amateur Tulip-Grower and his Neighbor
VI. A Tulip-Fancier's Hatred
VII. The Happy Man Becomes Acquainted with Misfortune
VIII. An Incursion
IX. The Family Cell
X. The Jailer's Daughter
XI. The Will of Cornelius van Baerle
XII. The Execution
XIII. The Thoughts of One of the Spectators During the Last Scene
XIV. The Pigeons of Dort
XV. The Wicket in the Cell Door
XVI. Master and Scholar
XVII. The First Bulb
XVIII. Rosa's Lover
XIX. A Woman and a Flower
XX. What had Happened During the Eight Days
XXI. The Second Bulb
XXII. The Opening of the Flower
XXIII. The Jealous Man
XXIV. In which the Black Tulip Changes its Master
XXV. President Van Systens
XXVI. A Member of the Horticultural Society
XXVII. The Third Bulb
XXVIII. The Song of the Flowers
XXIX. In which Van Baerle, before quitting Louvestein, Settles his Accounts with Gryphus
XXX. In which One Begins to Suspect what Kind of Punishment was Reserved for Cornelius Van Baerle
XXXI. Haarlem
XXXII. A Last Prayer
Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

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

JANUARY 2013 - AudioFile