Contents: Introduction: jewels and the formation of identity in Victorian literature and culture Perceiving objects The commodity fetish in Thackeray's The Great Hoggarty Diamond Gift, theft, and exchange in The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Cameo appearances: aesthetics and gender in Middlemarch Tactics and 'strate-gems': jewelry, gender and the law in Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds Afterword Bibliography Index.