Girl with a Pearl Earring

248 pp. Inspiration for the motion picture starring Scarlet Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson, and Cillian Murphy. "History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening. Girl with a Pearl Earring tells the story of sixteen-year-old Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius ... even as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil." "Girl with a Pearl Earring is a novel by Tracy Chevalier published in 1999. It takes place in Delft, Holland and it is the story of a girl forced to become a maid because her father can no longer work. It was inspired by Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and imagines the circumstances under which the painting came to be created. It was adapted to a 2003 film of the same name." -- Wikipedia