D. H. Lawrence 
The Lost Girl (Centaur Classics) 

Under-appreciated until now, ’The Lost Girl’ is perhaps D. H. Lawrence’s most beautiful, thoroughly contemporary, love story. This captivating novel charts the journey of a woman caught between two worlds and two lives-one mired in dreary, industrial England and a life of convention, the other set in the vibrant Italian landscape holding the promise of sensual liberation. Alvina Houghton is fading into spinsterhood when she meets Naples-born Cicio, a vaudeville dancer who draws her into a dance of seduction, reawakening her desire as she defies her stifling upper-class life.