In 1937, Louis Kornitzer, a prominent London gem merchant, published “The Pearl Trader,” a passionate treatise on the natural pearl set against the backdrop of a brave new world in pearling.

Three decades earlier, Kokichi Mikimoto, the son of a noodle maker in Toba, Japan, had perfected a method to culture pearls, the process by which a bead or piece of mantle tissue is implanted inside the fleshy part of a mollusk, forcing the creature to secrete an iridescent substance called nacre that forms a pearl.

Until Mr. Mikimoto’s discovery made the organic gems available to the masses, pearls were accessories to aristocratic living. They have played a role in the lives of some of history’s greatest jewelry aficionados, from Cleopatra — who, according to legend, dissolved a pearl in vinegar to win a bet against Marc Anthony — to the watchmaker Louis Cartier. And they found some of their greatest expressions in the palaces of Indian maharajahs, who festooned ropes of the silvery gems across tunics, ornamental belts, carpets and canopies.

In “The Pearl Trader,” Mr. Kornitzer decried a future in which cultured pearls, which he called “cuckoo pearls,” ruled the marketplace. “I cannot see how mankind would be the gainer if fine pearls were as plentiful as blackberries and as cheap,” he wrote.