The Black Tulip

Personal Passion Proves Fertile Soil for the Madness of a Crowd

Tulip mania - the sudden, very steep rise in prices in Holland around 1637 for bulbs imported from Turkey - is an early example of an investment bubble. The mania was immortalized in Charles Mackay’s 1841 book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, and has since become an ever-present example in books on manias, panics and crashes.

Alexandre Dumas wrote The Black Tulip just nine years after Mackay’s book, and while Mackay focussed on the psychology of the crowd, Dumas approached from an individual perspective. Set 25 years after the peak of the bubble, there is still a lingering passion for tulips in Holland, in particular for the development of a black varietal, for which the Horticultural Society has established a prize of one hundred thousand guilders. With monomaniacal zeal, Dr. Cornelius van Baerle has set to claim the prize.

The book opens with the historical event of the graphic murder of brothers Johan and Cornelius de Witt, the former of whom was the modern equivalent of Dutch Prime Minister. The brothers had sided with catholic French king Louis XIV, which proved their undoing during another oft-seen mania, a street-mob of supporters agitating for blood, this time in support of the competing and popular protestant, and soon-to-be restored monarch, William of Orange.

Against this socio-political backdrop Dr. van Baerle relentlessly pursues his passion for the black tulip. His jealous neighbour, lacking the doctor’s botanical skills, wants to steal the results, and through equally passionate scheming causes the imprisonment of Dr. van Baerle. While in prison, the doctor finds ways to continue his floral pursuit, but finds competition for his passion from Rose, the jailer’s daughter. The political intrigue continues to unfold and re-insert itself into the doctor’s misguided pursuits - he is after all a political prisoner, the god-son of one of the murdered brothers.

The Black Tulip is a love story set amongst historic events; it has the language its time, and the pacing typical of early novels. Nonetheless, it is an excellent example of historical fiction, and an insightful look at the irrationality that drives individuals as they form part of the madness of the crowd. Dr. van Baerle has lost perspective, and his hard work to develop a flower is folly, doubly so when contrasted with the prospect of Rose. People do lose context, whether caught up in events in the crowded streets, or over a longer period in a housing, stock market, or tulip bubble, and it is Dumas understanding of this basic human trait that makes The Black Tulip so enduring and important.