Welcome to Litsy!

Kurin has two objectives: One is to trace the history of the gem, from its acquisition by Tavernier (I‘m related to him which is partly why I read the book) through its time in royal French and British circles to its transfer to the United States and its gifting to the Smithsonian. The second objective is to dispel the claims of a curse affecting the Hope‘s owners and explore the story of how the the curse claim evolved over the 20th century.

It was great fun seeing the Hope Diamond at the American Museum of Natural History here in DC. My daughter kept saying: “Oceans 8” “Oceans 8.”