"Antonio Stradivari spent almost his whole life in the small northern Italian town of Cremona. He married twice, fathered eleven children, worked into his nineties and produced over a thousand violins, cellos and violas. Two hundred and fifty years after his death, about six hundred survive, the most highly prized instruments in the world." "In this narrative, Toby Faber explores Stradivari's life with six of his most important instruments and following them as they are bought and sold, played and collected down the centuries. It's a tale of dedication and disappointment, of meticulous forgeries and unscrupulous dealers, of extravagant talent and reckless generosity, of obsession, passion and fame. Ultimately, it is the story of how skill and perseverance enabled one man to reach for, and sometimes achieve, perfection."--BOOK JACKET.