AKA Francis Marion Crawford

Born: 2-Aug-1854
Birthplace: Bagni de Lucca, Tuscany, Italy
Died: 9-Apr-1909
Location of death: Sorrento, Italy
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Novelist

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Whosoever Shall Offend

American author, born at Bagni di Lucca, Italy, on the 2nd of August 1854, being the son of the American sculptor Thomas Crawford, and the nephew of Julia Ward Howe, the poet. He studied successively at St. Paul's school, Concord, New Hampshire; Cambridge University; Heidelberg; and Rome. In 1879 he went to India, where he studied Sanskrit and edited the Allahabad Indian Herald. Returning to America he continued to study Sanskrit at Harvard University for a year, contributed to various periodicals, and in 1882 produced his first novel, Mr. Isaacs, a brilliant sketch of Anglo-Indian life mingled with a touch of Oriental mystery. This book had an immediate success, and its author's promise was confirmed by the publication of Dr. Claudius (1883). After a brief residence in New York and Boston, in 1883 he returned to Italy, where he made his permanent home. This accounts perhaps for the fact that, in spite of his nationality, Crawford's books stand apart from any distinctively American current in literature. Year by year he published a number of successful novels. He also published several historical works. In these his intimate knowledge of local Italian history combines with the romancists imaginative faculty to excellent effect. But his place in literature depends on his novels. He was a gifted narrator, and his books of fiction, full of historic vitality and dramatic characterization, became widely popular among readers to whom the realism of problems or the eccentricities of subjective analysis were repellent. He could unfold a romantic story in an attractive way, setting his plot amid picturesque surroundings, and gratify the reader's intelligence by a style at once straightforward and accomplished. The Saracinesca series shows him perhaps at his best. A Cigarette-maker's Romance was dramatized, and had considerable popularity on the stage as well as in its novel form; and in 1902 an original play from his pen, Francesca da Rimini, was produced in Paris by Sarah Bernhardt. He died at Sorrento on the 9th of April 1909.

Father: Thomas Crawford (sculptor)
Wife: Elizabeth Christophers Berdan (m. 11-Oct-1884, sep. 1891, one daughter, one son)
Daughter: Eleanor Louisa Elizabeth Christophers
Son: Harold

    High School: St. Paul's School, Concord, NH
    University: Cambridge University
    University: Harvard University (one year)

Author of books:
Mr. Isaacs (1882, novel)
Dr. Claudius (1883, novel)
A Roman Singer (1884, novel)
An American Politician (1884, novel)
To Leeward (1884, novel)
Zoroaster (1885, novel)
A Tale of a Lonely Parish (1886, novel)
Marzio's Crucifix (1887, novel)
Saracinesca (1887, novel)
Paul Patoff (1887, novel)
With the Immortals (1888, novel)
Greifenstein (1889, novel)
Sant Ilario (1889, novel)
A Cigarette-makers Romance (1890, novel)
Khaled (1891, novel)
The Witch of Prague (1891, novel)
The Three Fates (1892, novel)
The Children of the King (1892, novel)
Don Orsino (1892, novel)
Marion Darche (1893, novel)
Pietro Ghisleri (1893, novel)
Katharine Lauderdale (1894, novel)
Love in Idleness (1894, novel)
The Ralstons (1894, novel)
Casa Braccio (1895, novel)
Adam Johnstons Son (1895, novel)
Taquisara (1896, novel)
A Rose of Yesterday (1897, novel)
Corleone (1897, novel)
Ave Roma Immortalis (1898, history)
Via Crucis (1899, novel)
In the Palace of the King (1900, novel)
Rulers of the South (1900, history)
Marietta (1901, novel)
Cecilia (1902, novel)
Whosoever Shall Offend (1904, novel)
Soprano (1905, novel)
Gleanings from Venetian History (1905, history)
A Lady of Rome (1906, novel)
The White Sister (1909, novel)

Wrote plays:
Francesca da Rimini (1902)

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