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.
After hawking it around the courts of Europe, Pitt sold the diamond to Louis XIV's profligate and deeply amoral nephew, the Duc d'Orléans. Raised to glory by this fortune, Pitt's grandsons would rule England and devote their lives to fighting the very Bourbon kings who wore their diamond, the enduring symbol of the rivalry between France and England.
The diamond was worn by Louis XIV, Louis XV, and by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. A beautiful blond whore placed it in her private parts to entice Czar Peter the Great on his visit to Paris. A band of thieves stole it during the bloodiest days of the Revolution. Found in an attic, it was pawned for horses for Napoleon's first campaigns. Napoleon redeemed the diamond and, though his wife Josephine craved it, set it in the hilt of his sword, where it appeared in many of his portraits. After his fall, his young second wife, Marie-Louise, grabbed it when she fled France. The Régent was hidden in innumerable secret places, used by Napoleon III and the ravishing Empress Eugenie to impress Queen Victoria, and finally ended up on display in the Louvre museum, where it remains today, then and now the first diamond of France.
Julie Baumgold, herself the descendant of a family of diamond merchants, tells this extraordinary story through Count Las Cases (author of Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène), who writes it in his spare time while in exile with Napoleon I. The book is in Las Cases's words, those of a clever, sophisticated nobleman at home in the old regime as well as in Napoleon's court. As he tells his story, with Napoleon prodding, challenging, and correcting him all the while, they draw closer. The emperor has a kind of love/hate relationship with the diamond, which represents the wealth and fabulous elegance of the French courts as well as the power for good or evil that possessing it confers on its transient masters. He thinks of it as his good luck charm, but is it? For the diamond has its dark side -- murder, melancholy, and downfall ever shadow its light.
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.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Julie Baumgold is the author of the novel Creatures of Habit. She is a former contributing editor of New York, Esquire, and Vogue. She has been an essayist (The Best American Essays 1996), poet (Mademoiselle Poetry Prize), and the columnist "Mr. Peepers" for New York and Esquire. She lives on Amelia Island and in New York.
The true story of the Regent Diamond is expertly recounted by author Julie Baumgold through historical and fictional characters. The book examines history through the faceted prisms of one rare object. The Regent Diamond passed through an astonishing number of owners, many of whom displayed or secured it in astonishing ways. Simon Vance possesses a rich voice but delivers some of the main characters so similarly that the dialogue blurs. Conversations between fallen emperor Napoleon and his biographer, the Count Las Casas, are the most confusing, as the dialogue frequently switches to Las Casas's internal thoughts. The "footnotes," provided by the fictional Abraham, add an extra level of intertextuality that is better appreciated in the print format. R.F. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. Based on the true history of the Regent diamond, a magnificent 140+ carat gem on display in the Louvre, Baumgold weaves an historical novel that features many an historical character, including several Louis' and Napoleons. There is a little browning to the textblock, but otherwise a fine copy in very near fine dust jacket with the most minimal of edgewear. Seller Inventory # 001460
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Condition: Good. SIGNED! New York, London: Simon & Schuster, 2005. 1st edition. ix+307pp. Signed/Inscribed by author on title page. "To Bill Safire, Thank you for my first push into the world - Hope you like it as much as MVK thought you might - With affection and respect from your longtime fan, Julie Baumgold." Good book. Near Fine dust jacket. Page edges toned. From the library of American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter William Safire. (Regent diamond, Napoleon, historical fiction) Inquire if you need further information. Seller Inventory # MA04C-01132
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