The Lost Stradivarius, published in 1895, is a gothic novel by J. Meade Falkner (1858-1932) that deftly blends mystery, music, and the supernatural. Set in the English countryside and the Italian city of Naples, the novel follows John Maltravers, a young Oxford student and gifted musician, who stumbles upon an exquisite Stradivarius violin hidden in his college rooms. This fateful discovery soon leads John down a dark path as the violin exerts an eerie influence over him, compelling him to pursue strange, otherworldly experiences. As his obsession with the instrument grows, John becomes increasingly entangled with the mysterious past of its previous owner-a man whose decadent and morally ambiguous life begins to echo ominously in John's own.