Description: Chevalier transports readers to a bygone time and place in this richly imagined portrait of the young woman who inspired one of Vermeer's most celebrated paintings. "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is the story of 16-year-old Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius, even as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil.

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Reviews: "Chevalier brings the real artist Vermeer and a fictional muse to life in a jewel of a novel." --Time magazine

"A vibrant, sumptuous novel...triumphant...a beautifully written tale that mirrors the elegance of the painting that inspired it." --The Wall Street Journal

"The richest, most rewarding novel I have read this year." --The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Outstanding." --USA Today

"Marvelously evocative." --The New York Times

"Superb...vividly captures the world of 17th-century Delft." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Tracy Chevalier has so vividly imagined the life of the painter and his subject that you say to yourself: This is the way it must have been." --The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"A jewel of a novel." --The Miami Herald

To quote KLIATT's Jan. 2001 review of the Recorded Books audio edition: In 1664 Delft, 16-year-old Griet, child of a family fallen on hard times, is hired to clean--without appearing to move anything--the studio of master painter Johannes V...

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