The Crystal Singer, or Crystal Singer in the U.S., is a young adult, science fiction novel by American writer Anne McCaffrey, first published by Severn House in 1982. It features the transition by Killashandra Ree, a young woman who has failed as an operatic soloist, to the occupation of "crystal singer" on the fictional planet Ballybran. The novel is based on short stories written in 1974 and is the first book McCaffrey set in her "Crystal universe". Alternatively, Crystal Singer is a trilogy completed in 1992 and named for its first book. Doubleday and Del Rey published U.S. book club and paperback editions within a few months of the first edition in 1982. WorldCat participating libraries report holding editions in French, Polish, and Hebrew languages, published in the 1990s. Origins While a schoolgirl, Anne McCaffrey enjoyed one year of piano lessons purchased by her aunt. Later she studied voice for nine years, performed in the first music circus in 1949, once directed a play, and worked for a record label, Liberty Music Shop. DuPont transferred her husband temporarily to Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1962/63, where Anne resumed vocal training but suffered a crisis when she was informed that a flaw in her voice would limit her in that avocation. Regarding that experience, including some emotional trauma, her fictional character Killashandra Ree is partly autobiographical. McCaffrey divorced her husband in August 1970 and emigrated to the vicinity of Dublin, Ireland, in September with her second Dragonriders of Pern book nearly finished and a contract for the third. The White Dragon would complete her "original trilogy" with Ballantine Books in 1978 but for several years that work stalled. The markets for children and young adults provided crucial opportunities, as when editor Roger Elwood solicited contributions of short genre fiction to anthologies. She was able to deliver "The Smallest Dragonboy" and the four-part story of Killashandra: "Prelude to a Crystal Song", Continuum 1 (Apr 1974) "Killashandra – Crystal Singer", Continuum 2 (Aug 1974) "Milekey Mountain", Continuum 3 (Dec 1974) "Killashandra – Coda and Finale", Continuum 4 (Aug 1975) McCaffrey called the 1982 novel a "considerably expanded" version of the four-part work and acknowledged "the technical assistance of Ron Massey, Langshot Stables, Surrey" for its transformation. In fact the first three sections of the novel—through Killashandra's return from her first experience cutting crystal in the field—are moderately revised and heavily revised versions of the first