The Romantist : An Imagined Life of Francis Marion Crawford

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Summary: On the scene of the Romantist
Review: This past summer I visited Sorrento for the first time. Aftr a morning walk and gawking at the poetic beauty of the place and the sapphire sea I found myself on the Francis Marion Crawford corso. An American name,who was this man that an avenue should be named after him? The concierge back at my hotel obliged my question: Crawford was an American novelist,the most popular at the turn of the century. He bought a villa on a bluff of the Sorrentine coast with a magnificent view of the bay and Vesuvius, and below a small fjord for mooring of his yacht.He lived sumptuously with a retinue of servants and a full crew to man his yacht.Every summer he sailed to an isolated 14th Century watchtower in the Gulf of Policastro where he wrote his novels alone except for the crew who were shipboard.The natives dubbed him the Prince of Sorrento,he was a handsome man and gifted.The concierge on his off hours showed me the Villa Crawford which is now a home for a teaching sisterhood.Crawford was a national and international celebrity and admired romantically by his women readers.He is buried in a lovely cemetery at SantAgnello di Sorrento.To come upon this novel about Crawford doubled my vacation pleasure. How surely the novelist Mr. Palescandolo has caught the elan of this writer and the beauty of his chosen abode.Like Hedwige,the heroine,I am eager to revisit the Villa Crawford.I am now reading one of Crawford's novel: To Leeward. I realize, while reading this novel,that Mr. Palescandolo has written a Crawfordian novel to celebrate Crawford himself.For me it was a stunning and elightful coincidence.