gems, bibliography, book collecting, books on gems and jewelry, mineralogy

Nigel Israel: This is an extremely useful little book (booklet would, I think, be a better description) by the Curator of Earth Sciences at the British Library. Starting with a general preface and introduction, it attempts, quite successfully, to list the more important works on gemmology under various categories, including encyclopaedic works, general comprehensive surveys, gem testing, gem testing instruments, quick reference publications, textbooks, synthetic gemstones, fashioning, works on individual species, jewellery, gemstones of particular localities, bibliographies, abstracts, journals, gemstone prices, guides to collections, and regalia. The works are listed with their publication details, including if and where they are held by the British Library, and, in many cases, with helpful descriptions by the author. The book ends with a useful index, followed, inexplicably, by two pages of beryl and corundum crystal diagrams. The literature of gemmology is extremely large, so the selection is necessarily a personal one by the author, and many people will likely be surprised by the omission of some of their favorite works. The reviewer was personally most surprised by the exclusion of Diamonds and Precious Stones by Emanuel (1865 and 1867), as this book contains an extremely extensive bibliography of historic books on gemstones. However, despite the unfortunately high price of a soft-covered booklet of little more than photostat quality, I would certainly recommend The Literature of Gemstones (together with the author’s companion work The Literature of Mineralogy) to anyone interested in gemmology.