A singer with a jewel of doubtful provenance, an eastern claimant and a plot that follows the stone rather than the woman. Crawford wrote more than forty novels in under thirty years, mostly in Italy, and knew how to keep a reader turning. This edition binds fifty-six plates of painting with the text, among them works by Degas, Sargent and Lavery, and a run of ballet scenes from the stage and the class.











