'To have discovered the black tulip to have seen it for a moment...then to lose it to lose it forever!' Cornelius von Baerle a respectable tulip-grower lives only to cultivate the elusive black tulip and win a magnificent prize for its creation. But after his powerful godfather is assassinated the unwitting Cornelius becomes caught up in deadly political intrigue and is falsely accused of high treason by a bitter rival. Condemned to life imprisonment his only comfort is Rosa the jailer's beautiful daughter and together they concoct a plan to grow the black tulip in secret. Dumas' last major historical novel is a tale of romantic love jealousy and obsession interweaving historical events surrounding the brutal murders of two Dutch statesman in 1672 with the phenomenon of tulipomania that gripped seventeenth-century Holland.
