"Guido Maffeo was castrated when he was six years old and sent to study with the finest singing masters in Naples. He had only known routine hunger and cruelty among the large peasant group to which he was born the eleventh child. And all of his life, Guido remembered he was given his first good meal and soft bed by those who made him a eunuch." Thus begins Anne Rice's Cry to Heaven. A well-researched fictional tale of famous castrati in 18th century Italy. Size: 6 1/4" x 9 1/4". 530 pages. Slight tearing on the bottom of the spine and yellowing of the page edges due to age. Published in 1982, the book is nevertheless in excellent condition.