The Song of the Lark is the story of an American opera singer, her childhood in the Colorado desert, her early struggles in Chicago, her romantic adventures among the Cliff dweller ruins in Arizona, her splendid triumphs on the operatic stage. There is a diverting picture of musical circles in Chicago. There are wonderful chapters of the Cliff Dweller ruins which first awake in the heroine the historic imagination so necessary to a great Wagnerian singer, and where she grows all at once into a powerful and wilful young creature, gets her courage, and begins to find herself.