Perhaps D. H. Lawrence's most beautiful, thoroughly contemporary love story, The Lost Girl charts the journey of a woman caught between two worlds and two lives: one mired in convention in industrial England, the other promising sensual liberation in the vibrant landscape of Italy. Alvina Houghton, the daughter of a widowed Midlands draper, comes of age just as her father's business is failing. In a desperate attempt to regain his fortune and secure his daughter's proper upbringing, James Houghton buys a theater. Among the traveling performers he employs is Naples-born Cicio, a vaudeville dancer who draws Alvina into a dance of seduction, awakening her desire as she defies her stifling upper-class life for a fleeting chance at freedom.