This book tells all about a lost, authentically legendary species: the divas. They were the first movie stars before Pickford and Garbo, there was Geraldine Farrar, Lina Cavalieri, and Mary Garden. They were the most stunning opera singers, their personalities perhaps even bigger than their voices. Their success and their lives filled the gossip columns. Their fans loved them, grand dukes covered them in jewels. They represented both the splendorous excesses of an era of elegance and luxury, and its swan's song. There is almost nothing that survives of them today. Thankfully, their image remains and reveals all.