This is an important study of both well-known and forgotten jewellery fashions and trends. It aims to spotlight areas of collectability - mainly from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries - which are available to enthusiasts today. Each chapter - there are now twenty-two in this second edition - concentrates on a specific topic, but there is a comprehensive cross-referencing to other chapters. There are seventy-one colour plates and over 270 black and white illustrations. Almost every item shown has been on the market in recent years. No other jewellery book reflects the antique jewellery market or collectors' enthusiasms in quite the same way. Among the types of jewellery covered are: diamond brooches, coral nineteenth-century goldwork, pique, silver jewels, cameos and intaglios, mosaics, Edwardian pendants and unusual materials. 'Theme' jewellery is another area described with an amazing variety of representations of animals or flowers, as well as Victorian Scottish jewellery and nineteenth-century archaeological revival jewels inspired by the goldwork of the Greeks, Etruscans or ancient Egyptians. The work of individual artist-jewellers, who played such an important part in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements, is documented, along with the glamorous, highly sought after jewels created by the great jewel houses like Cartier, Tiffany, Falize and Van Cleef & Arpels. Finally, the important 'movements' - Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, including Liberty's huge output, and Art Deco - are assessed. To these have been added an important chapter on Retro Modern - the cocktail jewellery for the 1940s - the best of which has become eminently collectable.