Tulip Fever - Hardcover

Moggach, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385334893 ISBN 13: 9780385334891

Publisher: Delacorte Pr, 2000

Synopsis

In Amsterdam in the 1630s, a young wife escapes her stifling marriage to an older man into the arms of the artist who is hired to paint their portrait. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

The Amsterdam of the early 17th century has been forever immortalised by the serene, precise domestic realism of the canvases of Vermeer and Rembrandt, and has been studied with meticulous care by Simon Schama in his marvellous book The Embarrassment of Riches. What Schama identified at the heart of the opulent display of conspicuous consumption in Dutch still-life painting was an anxiety about wealth and owning commodities. This ran throughout 17th-century life in the Low Countries, an argument beautifully complemented by Ann Pavord's marvellous book on The Tulip.

Deborah Moggach's novel Tulip Fever gives both Schama and Pavord's studies a compelling fictional twist. Set in 1630s Amsterdam, it begins with a typical Renaissance love triangle: a wealthy, elderly merchant Cornelis Sandvoort, his beautiful but frustrated young wife Sophia and the painter who enters their life, Jan van Loos. Commissioned to paint the happy couple's portrait, Jan becomes embroiled in a series of emotional and financial speculations which are to change the character's lives forever. Tulip Fever is a delightfully conceived story which offers a new dimension to what really goes on within the apparently placid domestic interiors of such canvases. --Jerry Brotton (Running time approx 2 hours 20 minutes)

Review:

"A tale of passion, obsession and deception, Deborah Moggach’s Tulip Fever is undoubtedly a technically accomplished novel by an experienced author... Aesthetically pleasing in style, showered with metaphors and symbolic language." (Beatrice Scudeler Palatinate)

"A scintillating story of lust, deception and retribution" (Independent on Sunday)

"A sumptuous and enthralling novel about art, love, illusion and money...with the denouement of a classic" (The Times)

"A story of love, deceit, changelings, and mistaken identity worthy of a Restoration dramatist" (Anna Pavord Daily Mail)

"A byzantine plot that hurtles towards disaster, while retaining the polished veneer of a Dutch interior" (Harpers & Queen)

About this edition

• Publisher: Delacorte Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0385334893
• ISBN 13: 9780385334891
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 281