A masterpiece of sexual obsession and its catastrophic consequences plays out against the works of great German composers A study of erotic obsession and the nature of genius, Henry Handel Richardson's first novel is set in the musical world of Leipzig in the 1890s. Its extraordinary heroine, Louise, is Australian. Her affair with the young English music student Maurice Guest ruins his life and career and yet he has no choice, her captivation of him is such that he becomes the author of his own tragedy. This story is about ordinariness caught up with emotive power, provincialism among the exotic, and the tragedy of a destructive passion.