With her slinky, alluring stage presence and her wink-in-the-eye purr of a voice, Eartha Kitt was a one-of-a-kind artist and act in the 1950s, an icon who, had she been a young star when the era hit in the '80s, would have made the song video her own: she instinctively understood that the visual and the song go hand in hand in the modern pop world.

This two-disc, 40-track set collects the best of her recordings for RCA Victor between 1952 and 1957, including 1952’s sultry “Monotonous,” 1953’s “Santa Baby,” “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and “I Want to Be Evil,” the haunting “The Day the Circus Left Town,” and the weary, resigned “Dinner for One Please, James” both from 1955, and 1957's “St.

Louis Blues,” drawn from the motion picture of the same name that hit movie screens in 1958.

Kitt went on to more movie, stage, club, and television work, but the heart of her recorded legacy as a singer is collected here.