"Wingless Victory" is the story of two world-famous creatures of genius and passion: Gabriele d'Annunzio, "the faun of the Abruzzi," poet, novelist, playwright, amorist and wildly worshiped military hero - and Eleonora Duse, the incomparable actress, whose art inspired some of the greatest dramatists of her time and enchanted the people of three continents. In telling the stories of this extraordinary pair, Frances Winwar has succeeded in creating a setting almost as brilliant as her two stars. The world in which d'Annunzio and Duse moved was a world of remarkable men and women. The people they talked and dined and quarreled with, the people they wrote letters to and borrowed money from were the great creative figures of late 19th century Europe: Debussy, Sudermann, Bernhardt, Romain Rolland, Isadora Duncan among them - persons whose ambitions, rivalries and partisan battles enrich the fabric of the entire narrative. It is Miss Winwar's triumph that the reader not only becomes an intimate of d'Annunzio and Duse but also moves as a familiar among the glittering company of their friends.