Crawford, Francis Marion

Crawford, Francis Marion (1854–1909), son of noted sculptor Thomas Crawford (1813–57), and nephew of Julia Ward Howe, was born in Italy. Educated in the U.S. and abroad, he began his career as an author of romantic novels of cosmopolitan life with Mr. Isaacs, A Tale of Modern India (1882), the story of a diamond merchant. This was followed by more than 40 novels dealing with the various countries in which the author resided. Among those set in Rome are A Roman Singer (1884), a story of artist life; To Leeward (1884), concerning the unhappy marriage of an English girl and an Italian marchese; Marzio's Crucifix (1887), about an Italian silversmith's struggle between love for his religious art and hatred of his brother, a priest; Saracinesca (1887), a story of love in Italian high society, and its sequels, Sant' Ilario (1889), Don Orsino (1892), and Corleone (1896); Pietro Ghisleri (1983), the love story of an Italian gentleman and an English girl; Casa Braccio (1895), about an Italian nun's elopement with a Scottish nobleman, and the unhappy life of their daughter; and The White Sister (1909), dealing with a nun torn between devotion to her vows and her passion for a former lover. The novels set in Germany include Greifenstein (1889), a story of German university life; A Cigarette‐Maker's Romance (1890), about an impoverished Russian count and his love for a Polish girl who works with him in a tobacco shop; and Dr. Claudius (1883), the story of a Swedish doctor in Germany. Crawford's seven novels set in the U.S. include An American Politician (1884), concerned with political corruption and reform during the Gilded Age; The Three Fates (1892), about the love affairs of a young author; Katherine Lauderdale (1894), dealing with wealthy New York society, and its sequel, The Ralstons (1895). He also wrote such historical romances as Zoroaster (1885), set in Persia at the time of Cyrus; Via Crucis (1898), the story of an English nobleman in the Second Crusade; In the Palace of the King (1900), set in Philip II's Spain; Marietta (1901), the story of a 15th‐century Venetian glass worker; and Arethusa (1907), about 14th‐century Constantinople. In addition to his short stories of the supernatural, Wandering Ghosts (1911), he wrote several plays adapting his novels for the stage, as well as Francesca da Rimini (1902), written for Sarah Bernhardt. In The Novel—What It Is (1893), and implicitly in his work, Crawford set forth his concept of fiction, which he said is to be devoted exclusively to entertainment, for which purpose he preferred the historical novel or romantic narrative of cosmopolitan life, and avoided moralizing or any photographic representation of life.