VILLA CRAWFORD

Francis Marion Crawford was an American writer born in 1854 in Italy to American parents. Crawford first novel was a success. 

Returned in Europe married Elizabeth Christophers Berdan and purchased a property in Sant'Agnello di Sorrento which became Villa Crawford. The couple raised two sons and two daughters. 

Through the 1880s and 1890s Crawford wrote over forty romance and adventure novels and histories, many set in Italy and most selling well in both America and Europe; he traveled often to lecture and write, as well as to sail in his yacht, the Alda. 

Crawford wrote almost daily to his wife when he lectured in America, sailed off the Italian coast, or when she fled the summer heat of Villa Crawford.