4*

The Black Tulip is historical fiction, a love story, mixing historical characters with fictional ones. It was first published in 1850. I loved The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, so I was hoping to enjoy The Black Tulip too. I did, but not quite as much. I think it’s because I don’t know much about Dutch history and so I found the early chapters, about the brothers Cornelius and Johan de Witt, a bit difficult to follow. They were Dutch statesmen, accused of treason, who were brutally killed by a mob in the Hague in 1672, during a period of political upheaval, when they escaped from prison.

The story centres on Cornelius von Baerle, the fictional godson of Cornelius de Witt and his desire to grow a black tulip. He became involved in the de Witts’ affairs when Cornelius de Witt left a sealed parcel of his correspondence with the French war minister, with him for safekeeping. He didn’t open the parcel and didn’t know what it contained.

When the Tulip Society of Haarlem offered a prize of a hundred thousand guilders for the development of a tulip ‘without a spot of colour‘, this set the tulip growers into a frenzy of activity, including Van Baerle and his neighbour, Isaac Boxtel. Boxtel spied on Van Baerle’s experiments to grow a black tulip, which were having more success than his own efforts. Indeed Boxtel was obsessed with what Van Baerle was doing, neglecting his own tulips to wither and rot as he observed, through a telescope, what his neighbour was doing both in his garden and in his laboratory.

Whilst observing Van Baerle’s laboratory, Boxtel had seen the meeting between Cornelius de Witt and Van Baerle when he entrusted his papers to his godson. On hearing that the de Witt brothers had been arrested Boxtel realised he could inform against Van Baerle and get him arrested, thus giving himself the opportunity to steal the bulb Van Baerle had produced. And the hundred thousand guilder prize would be his.

And so Van Baerle was thrown into prison, wrongly convicted of treason and under sentence of death. However William of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland granted him his life but condemned him to imprisonment for life. He was sent to the fortress of Loewestein and there kept in solitary confinement. What follows is a dark and somewhat farcical tale, as aided by the jailer’s daughter Rosa he continues to cultivate his tulip bulbs. He and Rosa fall in love, despite all the difficulties that assault them.

It’s a great story, full of drama and emotion. It’s a love story, a story about passion, hatred, jealousy, obsession and injustice. After the difficulties I had with the first four or five chapters (I had to re-read them to work out how the rest of the story was connected) I found it difficult to put down, keen to find out what would happen next. I didn’t love it like I loved The Count of Monte Cristo, but I really liked it.