The Black Tulip
Alexandre Dumas
Oct 2026 · Sonictale Studios · Narrated by AI Voice F. Hearts
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9 hr 14 min
Unabridged
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Eligible
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This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice.
The novel opens with a murder. In August 1672 the brothers Cornelis and Johan de Witt, the most powerful statesmen in Holland, are killed by an Orangist mob in The Hague. Cornelis's godson, Cornelius van Baerle, lives in Dordrecht and has taken no interest in politics whatsoever. He grows tulips.
That is exactly the problem. The Tulip Society of Haarlem has offered a hundred thousand guilders for the first truly black tulip, and van Baerle is close to producing it. His neighbour Isaac Boxtel, who spies on him through a telescope, wants the prize just as badly and has neither his skill nor his luck. When Cornelis de Witt leaves politically sensitive papers with his godson for safekeeping, Boxtel sees his opening: van Baerle is denounced, arrested and condemned, and carries three precious bulbs into prison hidden on his person. There he meets Rosa, the jailer's daughter, who can neither read nor write and who becomes his partner in the secret work of bringing the flower into bloom.
Published in 1850, The Black Tulip is one of Dumas's shorter novels. It begins with a scene of political murder and then narrows to a cell, a window, a girl and a bulb, with a fortune and two lives resting on whether a flower opens. This new translation keeps the contrast intact: the political horror of the opening and the almost comic obsessiveness of the tulip fancy that follows.
The novel opens with a murder. In August 1672 the brothers Cornelis and Johan de Witt, the most powerful statesmen in Holland, are killed by an Orangist mob in The Hague. Cornelis's godson, Cornelius van Baerle, lives in Dordrecht and has taken no interest in politics whatsoever. He grows tulips.
That is exactly the problem. The Tulip Society of Haarlem has offered a hundred thousand guilders for the first truly black tulip, and van Baerle is close to producing it. His neighbour Isaac Boxtel, who spies on him through a telescope, wants the prize just as badly and has neither his skill nor his luck. When Cornelis de Witt leaves politically sensitive papers with his godson for safekeeping, Boxtel sees his opening: van Baerle is denounced, arrested and condemned, and carries three precious bulbs into prison hidden on his person. There he meets Rosa, the jailer's daughter, who can neither read nor write and who becomes his partner in the secret work of bringing the flower into bloom.
Published in 1850, The Black Tulip is one of Dumas's shorter novels. It begins with a scene of political murder and then narrows to a cell, a window, a girl and a bulb, with a fortune and two lives resting on whether a flower opens. This new translation keeps the contrast intact: the political horror of the opening and the almost comic obsessiveness of the tulip fancy that follows.
This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice.
The novel opens with a murder. In August 1672 the brothers Cornelis and Johan de Witt, the most powerful statesmen in Holland, are killed by an Orangist mob in The Hague. Cornelis's godson, Cornelius van Baerle, lives in Dordrecht and has taken no intere...
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