The Black Tulip

by Alexandre Dumas

Overview

In the Netherlands, at the end of the seventeenth century, Cornelius Van Beagle is about to create a marvelous flower, a black tulip. Isaac Boxtel, the neighbor tries in every way to steal the precious bulbs. To achieve its purpose enters Cornelius' greenhouse and denounces his rival of having hidden the letters entrusted to him by Corneille de Witt, Governor of the Province. Van Beagle with a stratagem succeed to bring with them the precious bulbs in prison wrapping them in a sheet containing a message from the Governor...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788867441945
Publisher:	Kitabu
Publication date:	10/07/2013
Series:	Radici
Sold by:	StreetLib SRL
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	748,813
File size:	437 KB

About the Author

Best known as the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas (1802–70) wrote travel books and children's stories as well as popular historical novels. He ranks among France's most widely read authors, and his works have been translated into nearly 100 languages.

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