The Tulip

Format:	Paperback 304 pages

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Synopsis

"The Tulip" is not a gardening book. It is the story of a flower that has made men mad. Greed, desire, anguish and devotion have all played their part in the development of the tulip into the world-wide phenomenon it is today. No other flower has ever carried so much cultural baggage; it charts political upheavals, illuminates social behaviour, mirrors economic booms and busts, plots the ebb and flow of religious persecution. Pavord tells how the tulip arrived from Turkey and took the whole of Western Europe by storm. Sumptuously illustrated from a wide range of sources, this beautifully produced and irresistible volume will become a bible, a unique source book, a universal gift book and a joy to all who possess it.

Book details

Published
17/04/2000

Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

ISBN
9780747546214

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UK Kirkus review

Pavord's The Tulip is a double delight. First, it has beautifully reproduced colour illustrations of four centuries of the compelling flower that is her theme. Then there's the gripping story, told with all the spark and verve of an author with a passion for her subject. Pick any tale from the inventory of individual tulip-lovers' successes and failures. One of my own favourites is William Pegg, who in 1800 became a Quaker and resigned from his job painting exquisite tulips on china, considering it a decadent and immoral occupation, to become a stocking maker: 'Stockings may have satisfied the inner man but did little to sustain the outer one.' Starving, Pegg was forced to return in 1813 to his former work at the Derby China Works, filling pages of a sketchbook with elegant florists' tulips which later found their way onto Derby's porcelain. The beauty of the accompanying illustration shows how Pegg's career calamity was our lasting gain. A jewel of a book, to be treasured and reread. (Kirkus UK)