Filled with a mixture of historical figures and fictional characters, The Golden Tulip reflects the life and times of the people in the seventeenth century in Europe and the Netherlands. Laker's careful research into the time period is brought to bear on descriptions of the historical and the fictional people and their feelings and reactions to the problems of the period.

Jan Vermeer was a Dutch master painter.

He was born in Delft in 1632, "near the zenith of an era that saw the Dutch nation lift itself into prominence as one of Europe's great powers," according to The World of Vermeer. Acknowledged today as a true master in a period filled with masters, Vermeer was not well known in his lifetime outside of his own city and did not leave many paintings or drawings. He seems to have led a quiet life in the house where he was...