Born on 2 August 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy, the son of Thomas Crawford, the American sculptor, and Louisa Cutler Ward, sister of Julia Ward Howe, Crawford's education included schooling in Rome, New Hampshire, Cambridge, Karlsruhe, and Heidelberg. In 1879 he went to Allahabad, India, to edit the
Indian Herald; but a year later he came to the United States to seek literary employment with the help of his uncle Samuel Ward, the celebrated gourmet and lobbyist. In 1882 the Macmillan Company published Crawford's first novel,
Mr. Isaacs: A Tale of Modern India, thereby beginning an association that would last until his death. Shortly afterward he returned to Italy to reside in Sorrento, where, after his marriage to Elizabeth Berdan in Constantinople in 1884, he purchased a villa overlooking the Bay of Naples and the island of Capri. His life henceforth was primarily devoted to his work, but in 1892 he returned to the United States for the first of many visits. At this time he renewed his friendship with Isabella Stewart Gardner, a wealthy Bostonian socialite and art collector whom he had known ten years earlier, and purchased a yacht that he would sail across the Atlantic.
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