- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Random House Canada (Mar 26 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0679311203
- ISBN-13: 978-0679311201
- Product Dimensions: 24.3 x 16.4 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 667 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #975,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Marian Fowler's engaging history Hope: Adventures of a Diamond traces one of the world's most famous gems on a 2,000-year journey back and forth across the globe. Actually, 2,000 years isn't accurate, because the blue stone that would become known as the Hope Diamond was born billions of years ago in India's Deccan plateau. But the subterranean part of its existence is not as interesting to Fowler as its time amongst the aristocrats and scoundrels of Europe. That period began in December 1668, when French diamond merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier sold the brilliant blue diamond, which was originally over 112 carats in weight, to Louis XIV for nearly $2 million in today's currency (it's now worth 200 times that). Pitau, the king's diamond cutter, was given the nerve-wracking task of cleaving and shaping the Hope for the first time. "It probably took him a day or more to recover from the tension of that one irrevocable mallet stroke," writes Fowler. In the court of the Sun King, the diamond came into its own as a symbol of wealth, power, and prestige. "With some help from advances in optics and gem cutting," Fowler writes, "Louis XIV pushed the diamond to centre stage and left it there to reign forever over all other precious stones as undisputed king." Fowler meticulously describes the fashion and jewellery trends of the era and details the outlandishly profligate habits and sexual peccadilloes of the French royals, who guaranteed inevitable bloody revolution--and the pilfering of the crown jewels. The diamond's life in England is equally tempestuous. Henry Philip Hope, the shy, sensitive man who gave the gem its name and perhaps loved it the best of all its owners, was cursed with a set of descendants so vain and foolish that it's little wonder the diamond became so notorious.
Replacing countless speculations with a well-marshalled army of facts and research, Fowler delights in demolishing the myths surrounding the Hope, including the "curse" that supposedly befell its owners. Rather than possessing any innate powers, the diamond was ultimately whatever the possessor wanted it to be--a testament to the superiority of royal blood, an entrée into high society, or a way out of gambling debts. If there's a moral to be deduced from Hope: Adventures of a Diamond , it's that great wealth causes more problems than it's worth. But that's not an idea in which anyone places much stock. --Jason Anderson
From Publishers Weekly
Billed as the biography of the Hope Diamond, this comprehensive but overwritten book traces the cherished jewel's history from its formation in India more than a billion years ago to its current status as museum treasure. In her painstaking saga of the diamond's "life," Canadian Fowler (Blenheim: Biography of a Palace; In a Gilded Cage: American Heiresses Who Married British Aristocrats; etc.) hypothesizes about the blue diamond's origins, then introduces readers to each of its owners. The first, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a French merchant, sold the stone to King Louis XIV; the last, American jeweler Harry Winston, donated it to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, where the 45-carat gem has drawn millions of visitors for the past 40 years. Fowler's chronicle traverses the diamond's passage from the pockets of thieves who stole the diamond during the French Revolution to England and its namesake owner, Henry Philip Hope, into the hands of a social-climbing actress; then across the ocean to America, where an alcoholic heiress donned it frequently for parties but the author's cliched and overdramatic prose mars the gripping tale. Writing of Philip Hope, she gushes that the diamond "had found the man who, of all its many owners, would love it most faithfully and intensely, love it for its own essence and grace...." Though Fowler honorably corrects false rumors about the diamond and offers a few engaging tangents, this volume does not do its worthy subject justice. Agent, Jay Mandel. (Apr.)Forecast: Diamonds may be timeless, but they're also particularly in vogue now, at least in books. In October, W.H. Freeman released Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic and in November, Walker published Diamond: A Journey to the Heart of an Obsession (Forecasts, Oct.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
I Don't Think So, July 20 2002
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
One of the dumbest books I have ever read. Fowler does OK, just OK, when she writes of the more recent history of the diamond because she has well-documented information from which to draw. But, in her chronicles of the stone during the early years of its murky existence, she lets her imagination run wild, her prose becomes over-blown and turgid, and "facts" she throws about are questionable in the extreme. Ghastly, ghastly writing. Do NOT buy this book!
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mildly diverting, Jun 20 2002
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
Hope: Adventures of a Diamond might be worth a quick read if you have nothing better to read at the moment. The author writes mostly about the diamond's various owners, who were generally people of little interest. There is some information about the diamond and diamond-cutting, as well as some about other famous gems. The author, who holds a doctorate in English literature, cannot seem to decide whether she wishes to write a fiction or nonfiction book; she frequently launches into melodramatic prose about things she could not possibly know, such as owners' thoughts. Occasionally irritating is the author's lack of knowledge about things like history and economics, on which she nevertheless pronounces her opinions. For instance, she writes that Peter the Great "proved to be very kind and gentle". His own son, who he had tortured and killed, would be surprised to know that! Similarly, she says that Napoleon "marched with ego as big as his army across Europe, and England acted to contain him". Just England, huh? Where was England at the Battle of the Nations? Finally, perhaps only an English major could write with a straight face that the diamond's first European owner "prefigures the modern capitalist... who is still pillaging the global village". In summary, the book contains some information that is mildly interesting, but don't expect a lot.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
lacks sparkle, July 17 2002
By meg woods - Published on Amazon.com
There isn't a lot that could have done to make this more interesting, and the attempts made at conjecture and embellishment (regarding its curse, for example) don't add very much to the content. But, a reader does learn the story of the Hope Diamond and through the telling, about an interesting mix of historical information such as the French Revolution, Regency England, and Gilded Age America. And gem novices can learn about the nature of diamonds and of cultural attitudes to diamonds at various places and times in this book.
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