The Emperor's Diamonds

The Emperor's Diamonds

Author: Donald G. Moore

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2006-06-21

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0595842062

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Tami Tanaka finds a journal written by her granduncle, the commander of a Japanese submarine lost while on a secret mission during the Second World War. The journal raises many shocking questions and is the catalyst that propels Tami and ex Navy SEAL, Rick Hunter, on a perilous journey in search of sunken treasure.


The Diamond

The Diamond

Author: Julie Baumgold

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2005-11-01

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0743274547

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The Diamond is a brilliant, dazzling historical novel about a famous diamond—one of the biggest in the world—that passed from the hands of William Pitt’s grandfather to the French kings and Napoleon, linking many of the most famous personalities of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and serving as the centerpiece for a novel in every way as fascinating as Susan Sontag's The Volcano Lover or Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Rich with historical detail, characters, and nonstop drama, the story centers on the famous Regent diamond—once the largest and most beautiful diamond in the world—which was discovered in India in the late seventeenth century and bought by the governor of the East India Company, a cunning nabob, trader, and ex-pirate named Thomas Pitt. His son brought it to London, where a Jewish diamond-cutter of genius took two years to fashion it into one of the world's greatest gems. A glittering cast of characters parades through The Diamond: a mesmerizing Napoleon and the devoted Las Cases, stuck on Saint Helena with their memories; Louis XIV and his brother, the dissolute Monsieur; Madame, the German princess who married Monsieur; the Scottish financier John Law and Saint-Simon, who sold Pitt's diamond to Madame's depraved son; the depressed Louis XV; and Madame de Pompadour. Here too are the families, the Pitts in England and the Bonapartes in France; the men of Saint Helena; nobles and thieves; Indian diamond merchants and financiers—nearly everyone of interest and importance from the late seventeenth through the early nineteenth century. Written with enormous verve and ambition, The Diamond is a treat, a plum pudding of a novel filled with one delicious, funny, disgraceful episode after another. It is grand history and even grander fiction—a towering work of imagination, research, and narrative skill.


Famous Diamonds

Famous Diamonds

Author: Ian Balfour

Publisher: ACC Distribution

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

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"The history of great diamonds is intimately interwoven with the lives of emperors and conquerors, great kings and queens, with statesmen and soldiers, the rich and famous - but also, inevitably, with those who lead more shadowy lives. Diamonds have been objects of passion, sometimes of war, violence and theft." "As well as being objects of exceptional beauty and rarity, they were once thought to possess magical properties that protected their owners from enemies. Initially a male prerogative reflecting status and authority, these incredible gems later adorned the wives of powerful men, and at times were offered as influential gifts. Few were immune to the temptation of diamonds; many sacrificed their lives and souls to them." "In Famous Diamonds, Ian Balfour tells the fascinating stories of almost 80 of these remarkable gems including the famous: Koh-i-Noor, which is set in the British Crown Jewels; the infamous: the deep blue Hope Diamond, which is said to bring bad luck to all who handle it; the biggest: The Cullinan; and the Hollywood romantic: the Taylor-Burton Diamond. Some have detailed histories that can be traced from the present day back to the moment they were mined, while others have a more mysterious past or have disappeared from view. Also included are shorter entries on a further selection of some forty notable diamonds."--BOOK JACKET.


Diamonds

Diamonds

Author: Jack Ogden

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 0300235518

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A lavishly illustrated, in-depth early history covering two thousand years of diamond jewelry and commerce, from the Indian mines to European merchants, courts, and workshops This richly illustrated history of diamonds illuminates myriad facets of the “king of gems,” including a cast of larger-than-life characters such as Alexander the Great, the Mughal emperor Jahangir, and East India Company adventurers. It’s an in-depth study tracing the story of diamonds from their early mining and trade more than two thousand years ago to the 1700s, when Brazil displaced India as the world’s primary diamond supplier. Jack Ogden, a historian and gemologist specializing in ancient gems and jewelry, describes the early history of diamond jewelry, the development of diamond cutting, and how diamonds were assessed and valued. The book includes more than one hundred captivating images, from close-up full-color photographs of historic diamond-set jewelry (some previously unpublished), to photomicrographs of individual gems and illustrations of medieval manuscripts, as well as diagrams depicting historical methods of cutting and polishing diamonds.


Sci-Fi Box Set: 140+ Dystopian Novels, Space Adventures & Lost World Classics

Sci-Fi Box Set: 140+ Dystopian Novels, Space Adventures & Lost World Classics

Author: Jules Verne

Publisher: DigiCat

Published: 2023-12-16

Total Pages: 10716

ISBN-13:

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Enjoy this meticulously edited SF Collection, jam-packed with space adventures, dystopian apocalyptic tales and the greatest sci-fi classics: H. G. Wells: The Time Machine The War of the Worlds The Island of Doctor Moreau The Invisible Man... Jules Verne: Journey to the Center of the Earth 20.000 Leagues under the Sea The Mysterious Island... Mary Shelley: Frankenstein The Last Man Edgar Wallace: Planetoid 127 The Green Rust... Otis Adelbert Kline: The Venus Trilogy The Mars Series Malcolm Jameson: Captain Bullard Series Garrett P. Serviss: Edison's Conquest of Mars A Columbus of Space The Sky Pirate... Arthur Conan Doyle: The Professor Challenger Series Francis Bacon: New Atlantis Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland Jack London: Iron Heel The Scarlet Plague The Star Rover... Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde George MacDonald: Lilith H. Rider Haggard: King Solomon's Mines She William H. Hodgson: The House on the Borderland The Night Land... Edgar Allan Poe: Some Words with a Mummy Mellonta Tauta... H. P. Lovecraft: Beyond the Wall of Sleep The Cats of Ulthar Celephaïs Edward Bellamy: Looking Backward: 2000–1887 Equality... Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Owen Gregory: Meccania the Super-State Margaret Cavendish: The Blazing World Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels William Morris: News from Nowhere Samuel Butler: Erewhon Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race James Fenimore Cooper: The Monikins Hugh Benson: Lord of the World Fred M. White: The Doom of London Ignatius Donnelly: Caesar's Column Ernest Bramah: The Secret of the League Arthur D. Vinton: Looking Further Backward Robert Cromie: The Crack of Doom Anthony Trollope: The Fixed Period Cleveland Moffett: The Conquest of America Richard Jefferies: After London Francis Stevens: The Heads of Cerberus Percy Greg: Across the Zodiac David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus Stanley G. Weinbaum: Stories from the Solar System Edward Everett Hale: The Brick Moon Abraham Merritt: The Moon Pool The Metal Monster... C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne: The Lost Continent Lewis Grassic Gibbon: Three Go Back


SCIENCE FICTION Ultimate Collection

SCIENCE FICTION Ultimate Collection

Author: Jules Verne

Publisher: DigiCat

Published: 2023-12-16

Total Pages: 10715

ISBN-13:

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DigiCat presents to you this unique Sci-Fi collection with carefully picked out stories from out of space, thrilling intergalactic adventures, dystopian novels and the greatest sci-fi classics: H. G. Wells: The Time Machine The War of the Worlds The Island of Doctor Moreau The Invisible Man... Edgar Wallace: Planetoid 127 The Green Rust... Otis Adelbert Kline: The Venus Trilogy The Mars Series Malcolm Jameson: Captain Bullard Series Garrett P. Serviss: Edison's Conquest of Mars A Columbus of Space The Sky Pirate... Arthur Conan Doyle: The Professor Challenger Series Jules Verne: 20.000 Leagues under the Sea The Mysterious Island... Mary Shelley: Frankenstein The Last Man Edwin A. Abbott: Flatland Jack London: Iron Heel The Scarlet Plague The Star Rover... Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde George MacDonald: Lilith H. Rider Haggard: King Solomon's Mines She William H. Hodgson: The House on the Borderland The Night Land... Edgar Allan Poe: Some Words with a Mummy Mellonta Tauta... H. P. Lovecraft: Beyond the Wall of Sleep The Cats of Ulthar Celephaïs Edward Bellamy: Looking Backward: 2000–1887 Equality... Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Owen Gregory: Meccania the Super-State Margaret Cavendish: The Blazing World Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels William Morris: News from Nowhere Samuel Butler: Erewhon Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race James Fenimore Cooper: The Monikins Hugh Benson: Lord of the World Fred M. White: The Doom of London Ignatius Donnelly: Caesar's Column Ernest Bramah: The Secret of the League Arthur D. Vinton: Looking Further Backward Robert Cromie: The Crack of Doom Cleveland Moffett: The Conquest of America Richard Jefferies: After London Francis Stevens: The Heads of Cerberus Percy Greg: Across the Zodiac David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus Stanley G. Weinbaum: Stories from the Solar System Edward Everett Hale: The Brick Moon Abraham Merritt: The Moon Pool The Metal Monster... Francis Bacon: New Atlantis C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne: The Lost Continent Lewis Grassic Gibbon: Three Go Back


The Emperor's New Mathematics

The Emperor's New Mathematics

Author: Catherine Jami

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 0199601402

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Jami explores how the emperor Kangxi solidified the Qing dynasty in 17th-century China through the appropriation of the 'Western learning', and especially the mathematics, of Jesuit missionaries. This text details not only the history of mathematical ideas, but also their political and cultural impact.


The Greats of Sci-Fi: H. G Wells Edition

The Greats of Sci-Fi: H. G Wells Edition

Author: Jules Verne

Publisher: Good Press

Published: 2023-12-02

Total Pages: 10728

ISBN-13:

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The Greats of Sci-Fi: H.G. Wells Edition assembles an unparalleled anthology, encapsulating the full breadth and diversity of science fiction from its embryonic stages in the 19th century to its more complex formulations in the 20th century. The collection melds a vast array of literary styles, exploring speculative futures, alternate histories, and the ethereal bounds of fantasy and science fiction. Within its pages, readers will encounter seminal works that have defined and redefined the genre, from groundbreaking speculative visions to early examples of space operas, each piece serving as a pivotal anchor in the evolution of science fiction narratives. The anthology boasts contributions from a canon of authors whose works have not only shaped the contours of science fiction literature but also significantly influenced the cultural and literary fabric of their respective eras. From the adventurous sagas of Jules Verne to the philosophical narratives of H.G. Wells, and the eerie tales of Edgar Allan Poe, these authors collectively span a rich landscape of historical, cultural, and literary movements. Their narratives reflect a burgeoning interest in exploring the unknown, challenging the human condition, and critiquing societal norms through the lens of the speculative and the fantastic. The Greats of Sci-Fi: H.G. Wells Edition is a treasure trove for aficionados and novices alike, offering a unique opportunity to traverse the manifold realms of science fiction through a curated selection of stories that are as intellectually enriching as they are entertaining. It beckons readers to immerse themselves in the depth of imagination, the richness of thematic exploration, and the dialogues between the diverse voices that have collectively sculpted science fiction into a revered literary genre. This anthology is not only a journey through the annals of speculative fiction but also an exquisite exploration of the human experience viewed through a prism of infinite possibilities.