Who would have suspected that the story of a flower would inspire a narrative which is as romantic and as exciting as it is scholarly? Pavord's masterpiece is all that and more. Part European social history, part thriller, it follows the development of a flower which begins as a favourite of sultans and kings in the East, particularly Turkey, from about 1451, to its current position as a major international industry. So expensive were tulips that many early devotees opted to commission artists to paint images of them instead. Although the tulip is so closely associated with the Netherlands, it was in fact first cultivated in Europe by the French, who were then supplanted by the English.
Initial tulipomania resulted in tragedy in Holland and the flower went out of favour before reasserting itself in the 19th century. Although a source of pleasure, the tulip also incited obsession, greed and bitter rivalries. Physically this is a lovely book, with many gorgeous botanical plates, but this paperback edition only includes the first half of the original book. The hardback edition is magnificent, and Bloomsbury have followed it with an unusually seductive paperback.
