Against the real and bloody backdrop of the 1672 lynching of the De Witt brothers, Alexandre Dumas sets a quieter obsession: a mild gentleman of Dordrecht determined to breed the first true black tulip and claim the hundred-thousand-guilder prize. Love, envy, and a scheming neighbor conspire to send him from his greenhouse to a prison cell. A perfect miniature of Dumas's art, this edition presents the complete and unabridged novel, newly typeset and illustrated with 40 full-page color plates of the Dutch masters, Bosschaert's tulips among them.