The Black Tulip: A New Translation (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798305026566)

In a garden, a prison, and a single perfect flower-an empire of hope.

August 1672: Holland is convulsed by political hysteria and foreign invasion. In The Hague, a mob tears apart Johan and Cornelis de Witt, two of the Republic's greatest statesmen, in an orgy of violence that shocks all of Europe. In the aftermath of this atrocity, Cornelius van Baerle-a wealthy tulip grower and godson of Cornelis de Witt-is swept up in the political purge, falsely accused of treason, and condemned to death.

His execution is commuted to life imprisonment, and Cornelius is sent to the grim fortress of Loevestein with nothing but three precious tulip bulbs concealed in his clothing. These bulbs represent years of patient hybridization, the culmination of his life's work: the creation of a truly black tulip, a flower that has never existed in nature. Stripped of freedom, fortune, and future, Cornelius clings to this one remaining purpose-to cultivate his impossible flower and prove that beauty can triumph even in the darkest circumstances.

In the fortress, he finds an unlikely ally: Rosa, the jailer's compassionate daughter, who risks everything to help him. As they work together to nurture the precious bulbs in secret, their partnership deepens into love. But Cornelius's envious neighbor Isaac Boxtel has followed him to Loevestein, determined to steal the black tulip for himself and claim the glory-and the hundred-thousand-guilder prize-that should belong to his rival.

From the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo comes an intimate tale of love, perseverance, and the redemptive power of beauty. Set against the brutal realities of political violence and mob rule, The Black Tulip is Alexandre Dumas at his most hopeful and heartfelt-a story that proves that patient cultivation of beauty and goodness can flourish even in the cruelest soil.

Some flowers bloom in gardens. Some bloom in the darkness. And the rarest bloom in the human heart.