Alexandre Dumas`s novels are notable for their suspense and excitement, their foul deeds, hairsbreadth escapes, and glorious victories. In The Black Tulip (1850), the shortest of Dumas`s most famous tales, the real hero is no Musketeer, but a flower. The novel - a deceptively simple story - is set in Holland in 1672, and weaves the historical events surrounding the brutal murder of John de Witte and his brother Cornelius into a tale of romantic love. The novel is also a timeless political allegory in which Dumas, drawing on the violence and crimes of history, makes his case against tyranny and puts all his energies into creating a symbol of justice and tolerance: the fateful tulipa negra.

This new edition reprints the first, classic English translation. David Coward sets the novel in the context of its author`s life, the turbulent history of the Dutch Republic, and the amazing `tulipmania` of the seventeenth century which brought wealth to some and ruin to many.