AbstractViolet phosphorus (VP), the most stable phosphorus allotrope, is a van der Waals semiconductor that can be used to construct p-type nanodevices. Recently, high-quality VP crystals have been synthesized while a deep insight into their excitonic properties and bandgap tailoring approaches, which are crucial for their optoelectronic device applications, is still lacking. Here, we study the optical properties of ultrathin VP by second harmonic generation, photoluminescence, and optical absorption spectroscopy. We observed strong bound exciton emission that is 0.48 eV away from the free exciton emission, which is among the largest in 2D materials. In addition, the bandgaps of VP are highly sensitive to the number of layers and external strain, which provides convenient approaches for bandgap engineering. The strong bound exciton emission and tunable bandgaps make VP a promising material in optoelectronic devices.