Jewels: A Secret History

'Glorious . . . anecdote and information accumulate with marvellous abundance and a passionate sense of the fascination of jewels' Spectator Amber is the tears of prehistoric trees. One gem links Queen Victoria and a skeleton. Cleopatra drank a pearl to win a bet. A man turned into a diamond. When we put on jewels, what are we really wearing? Victoria Finlay travels the world to tell the true stories of these miraculous oddities of nature. 'Filled with eye-catching incidents and stories . . . Finlay's evidence glitters from every page' Sunday Telegraph 'A fascinating and exhaustive travelogue' Times Literary Supplement