Tulip Fever
Book report by Annick Hoogeveen V5A
Nicolaes Maes - A Sleeping Maid with her Mistress
, Title description
The title of the book is Tulip Fever and it is written by Deborah Moggach. Tulip Fever
was first published in the year 1999 and it has 259 pages. I have red the book in three
to four weeks, as well at home as during the reading lessons at school.
Summary
Tulip Fever is about a young woman, Sophia, and her much older husband Cornelis
Sandvoort. The novel is set in Amsterdam, that is why there are many Dutch names,
words and aspects of the Dutch culture in the book. Cornelis hires a painter, Jan van
Loos, to make a portrait of him and his wife. Sophia and Jan fall for each other and
secretly start an affair. Sophia and Cornelis have a maid, her name is Maria and she
finds herself pregnant from her boyfriend Willem. She tells Willem about the
pregnancy and they are both incredibly happy, Willem even proposes to Maria and
promises her a good life. But every time Sophia would secretly meet the painter Jan,
she would wear her maid Maria’s clothing to avoid being recognized. One day Willem
saw her and thought it was his soon to be wife Maria entering the painters house and
kissing him, it broke his heart and he left to join the navy without saying goodbye.
Now Maria was left with their baby and she is awfully sad and also mad at Willem.
Meanwhile Cornelis, who has unfortunately lost a child in the past, is thinking about
his legacy and wants to have a baby with Sophia. Maria and Sophia come up with a
plan that would suit both of them: they will pretend Sophia is pregnant instead of
Maria (no one really notices the maid anyway), then when the baby arrives Sophia will
supposedly die during childbirth, and the child that Maria does not want anymore will
belong to Cornelis who longs for a baby while Maria still gets to see her child and take
care of him/her. Obviously Sophia does not actually die, they just pretend that she does
so that she can flee the country with her lover Jan without anyone knowing.
Jan and Sophia plan to travel to Batavia by boat, to pay for that and some other debts
he needs to pay off before they go away, he gets involved in the booming tulip trade
and purchases a Semper Augustus bulb. The people that he owes money to do not trust
Jan to leave the house, they worry that he mightn’t come back, so Jan trusts his servant
Gerrit to sell the bulb for him. However Gerrit is a drunk and he comes back with an
onion. When Jan wants to tell Sophia the bad news, she has died for the second time
by throwing herself into the canal. In the meantime Willem comes back from the navy,
he returns to Maria and she tries to tell him that she can not leave for the baby she
takes care of is theirs and not Cornelis his child. The baby starts to cry and without
thinking Maria breastfeeds her, but Cornelis sees this and Maria is forced to tell the
entire story. Cornelis is furious and buys a ticket to Batavia to hunt down Sophia and
Jan. The ending of the book is quite hectic and skips many years ahead, in the end
Cornelis never came back to the Netherlands and there are many rumours about him,
Maria lives a good and happy life with her family in the house that once belonged to
Cornelis Sandvoort, Jan stays in The Netherlands and keeps painting, one day he
crossed paths with Sophia again, or did he?
Book report by Annick Hoogeveen V5A
Nicolaes Maes - A Sleeping Maid with her Mistress
, Title description
The title of the book is Tulip Fever and it is written by Deborah Moggach. Tulip Fever
was first published in the year 1999 and it has 259 pages. I have red the book in three
to four weeks, as well at home as during the reading lessons at school.
Summary
Tulip Fever is about a young woman, Sophia, and her much older husband Cornelis
Sandvoort. The novel is set in Amsterdam, that is why there are many Dutch names,
words and aspects of the Dutch culture in the book. Cornelis hires a painter, Jan van
Loos, to make a portrait of him and his wife. Sophia and Jan fall for each other and
secretly start an affair. Sophia and Cornelis have a maid, her name is Maria and she
finds herself pregnant from her boyfriend Willem. She tells Willem about the
pregnancy and they are both incredibly happy, Willem even proposes to Maria and
promises her a good life. But every time Sophia would secretly meet the painter Jan,
she would wear her maid Maria’s clothing to avoid being recognized. One day Willem
saw her and thought it was his soon to be wife Maria entering the painters house and
kissing him, it broke his heart and he left to join the navy without saying goodbye.
Now Maria was left with their baby and she is awfully sad and also mad at Willem.
Meanwhile Cornelis, who has unfortunately lost a child in the past, is thinking about
his legacy and wants to have a baby with Sophia. Maria and Sophia come up with a
plan that would suit both of them: they will pretend Sophia is pregnant instead of
Maria (no one really notices the maid anyway), then when the baby arrives Sophia will
supposedly die during childbirth, and the child that Maria does not want anymore will
belong to Cornelis who longs for a baby while Maria still gets to see her child and take
care of him/her. Obviously Sophia does not actually die, they just pretend that she does
so that she can flee the country with her lover Jan without anyone knowing.
Jan and Sophia plan to travel to Batavia by boat, to pay for that and some other debts
he needs to pay off before they go away, he gets involved in the booming tulip trade
and purchases a Semper Augustus bulb. The people that he owes money to do not trust
Jan to leave the house, they worry that he mightn’t come back, so Jan trusts his servant
Gerrit to sell the bulb for him. However Gerrit is a drunk and he comes back with an
onion. When Jan wants to tell Sophia the bad news, she has died for the second time
by throwing herself into the canal. In the meantime Willem comes back from the navy,
he returns to Maria and she tries to tell him that she can not leave for the baby she
takes care of is theirs and not Cornelis his child. The baby starts to cry and without
thinking Maria breastfeeds her, but Cornelis sees this and Maria is forced to tell the
entire story. Cornelis is furious and buys a ticket to Batavia to hunt down Sophia and
Jan. The ending of the book is quite hectic and skips many years ahead, in the end
Cornelis never came back to the Netherlands and there are many rumours about him,
Maria lives a good and happy life with her family in the house that once belonged to
Cornelis Sandvoort, Jan stays in The Netherlands and keeps painting, one day he
crossed paths with Sophia again, or did he?
