THE BOOK OF THE PEARL: The History,...

THE BOOK OF THE PEARL: The History, Art, Science and Industry of the Queen of Gems by George Frederick Kunz & Charles Hugh Stevenson (Dover: $17.95; 548 pp., illustrated). Although shifts in fashion and the rise of the cultured pearl industry have rendered some sections outdated, this erudite treatise, originally published in 1908, still provides a good deal of valuable information. The illustrations include a portrait of an uncomfortable Duchess of Marlborough weighted down with strands of pearls and a multi-row “dog collar,” and Empress Eugenie’s fabulous pearl necklace, which looks like Ali Baba’s jump rope.