Robin Hansen has been Curator, Minerals and Gemstones, at the Natural History Museum in London since 2015, and as curator of one of the best gemstone collections in the world she is in no doubt the perfect position to write a new book on Gemstones.

The Natural History Museum has published several books on Gemstones before, but in general these have been at best introductory guides. Their last publication on gemstones was, I believe, published in 2001 and was only 80 pages - Robin's new book is 240 pages long.

The book is divided into four main sections.

Firstly, the introduction covers the important topics of "What is a gem?", "How and where do gems form?", "Properties", "Cutting and Fashioning", "Imitations and Synthetics" and "Analysis".

The bulk of the book is dedicated to information on specific gemstones. This is split into "Well-known gems", "Lesser-known gems" and "Organic gems".

An example page, for spessartine, is shown below:



The detail given to each gemstone is exceptional - there are eight pages devoted to the feldspar group gems alone, thirteen for corundum and eighteen for diamond. To put that in context, the previous 2001 book on Gemstones from the Natural History Museum allowed just a single page on the feldspar group gems.

Photography is superb, and along with the photos of gemstones - many from the NHM collection themselves - there are well-selected photos of gem mineral specimens of the gems in question - many of these are by Jeff Scovil and the photo credits at the end of the book also give details of the collection these came from.

Of course the information in the new book is up-to-date, the modern history of Painite (which wasn't even mentioned in the 2001 book) is well covered, and it includes a picture of the specimen that ex-curator Alan Hart discovered in a drawer in the museum dating back to 1914, which had been misidentified as brown tourmaline. Had the identity been questioned earlier painite could have been discovered forty years earlier.

Who is this book for? While the previous 2001 book was primarly a "gift shop" item designed as a cheap introduction to sell to museum visitors, this book goes far beyond that and offers a genuinely useful and comprehensive introduction to gemology. Anyone interested in learning more about gemology would truly benefit from this book.

My only complaints about this book are about the layout and density of text - in order to fit the book into the 240 pages the type is relatively small, the margins are a little closer to the binding that I am comfortable with (see how that affected my attempt to scan a page above) and I would have preferred it if all new gemstones started on a new page, ideally a right side page. To change those things may well have added another 50 pages to the book, which is probably not viable, and in that way they certainly made the right choice to adjust the layout rather than cut out any of the valuable content.

The book is available now, retail price is £14.95 but it's on offer currently at £11.15 on amazon.co.uk (for UK customers only) - see https://www.amazon.co.uk/Natural-History-Museum-Book-Gemstones/dp/0565092243/ref=asc_df_0565092243/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=570519535670&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10238155493072263140&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007191&hvtargid=pla-1833085108272&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

Highly recommended!