By: Emily Franklin
ISBN: 978-1567928099
David R. Godine, 2024
2023 Sarton Winner: Historical Fiction
A deeply evocative portrayal of the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, the daring trailblazer who not only created an inimitable legacy in American art but also transformed a city.
By the time Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her Italian palazzo-style home as a museum in 1903 to showcase her collection of old masters, antiques, and objects d’art, she was already well-known for scandalizing Boston’s polite society. But when Isabella first arrived in Boston in 1861, she was twenty years old, newly married to a wealthy trader, and unsure of herself. Puzzled by the frosty reception she received from stuffy bluebloods, she strived to fit in. After two devastating tragedies and rejection from upper society, Isabella discovered her spirit and cast off expectations.
Freed by travel, Isabella explores the world of art, ideas, and letters, meeting such kindred spirits as Henry James and Oscar Wilde. From London and Paris to Egypt and Asia, she develops a keen eye for paintings and objects, and meets feminists ready to transform nineteenth century thinking in the twentieth century. Isabella becomes her own person, painted by John Singer Sargent in a portrait of daring décolletage, and fond of such stunts as walking a pair of lions in the Boston Public Garden. With a mission to make art accessible to the public, Isabella becomes the first woman to open a museum in the United States.
The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman’s life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her own terms.
About the Author
Emily Franklin is the author of more than twenty books including The Lioness of Boston, historic fiction about the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, a daring visionary who, in the 1800s, survived tragedy and created an inimitable legacy in American art and transformed the city of Boston. Her young adult books include The Half-Life of Planets (nominated for YALSA’s Best Book of the Year) and Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom (named to the Rainbow List) and Last Night at the Circle Cinema (Junior library Guild selection/ALAN Pick). A former chef, she wrote the cookbook-memoir Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 New Recipes to chronicle a year of new foods, family meals, hilarity and heartache around the table. Her debut poetry collection, Tell Me How You Got Here, was published in 2021. Her work has been published in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, Kenyon Review, and Guernica among other places as well as long-listed for the London Sunday Times Short Story Award, featured on National Public Radio, and named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries.
To learn more about Emily Franklin and her work, please see emilyfranklin.com
