The Lioness of Boston

by Emily Franklin

Overview

BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER

“Brings Isabella Stewart Gardner fully, intimately alive—irrepressible and avid for life. In this richly compelling novel, Emily Franklin beautifully conjures this extraordinary woman and her world.”—Claire Messud, author of The Emperor's Children

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781567928099
Publisher:	David R. Godine, Publisher
Publication date:	03/19/2024
Pages:	408
Sales rank:	23,968
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Emily Franklin is the author of more than twenty novels and a poetry collection, Tell Me How You Got Here. Her award-winning work has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Guernica, JAMA, and numerous literary magazines as well as featured and read aloud on NPR and named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries. A lifelong visitor to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, she lives outside of Boston with her family including two dogs large enough to be lions.

Editorial Reviews

03/13/2023

Franklin (Liner Notes) offers a vivid narrative of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s evolution into a pioneering art collector and museum founder. New Yorker Isabella marries wealthy Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner in 1860 at age 19. The straitlaced Jack appreciates his unpredictable wife’s intellect and creativity, though she gets a cold reception from Boston’s well-heeled matrons. A year later, Isabella considers the “sad magic to being female, a disappearing of the self,” and hopes that motherhood will win her social acceptance and help provide the sense of purpose she craves. Instead, her only child dies of pneumonia before he turns two, and a subsequent miscarriage leaves her unable to conceive again. During a lengthy stay in Europe, Jack hopes to ease her paralyzing grief. There, she meets Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and other luminaries who encourage her love of learning and passion for the arts. Isabella’s confidence deepens—and her reputation for eccentricity grows—as she begins to acquire artworks for the museum she opens in 1903. The novel brims with pitch-perfect period details, such as Isabella’s ability to shock New England society merely by wearing blue shoes, and Franklin cannily captures Gardner’s ambition, independence, and quirks. Fans of strong female protagonists and Gilded Age historicals will enjoy this. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth, Aevitas Creative Management. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

The Lioness of Boston brings Isabella Stewart Gardner fully, intimately alive—irrepressible and avid for life. In this richly compelling novel, Emily Franklin beautifully conjures this extraordinary woman and her world.”
—Claire Messud, author of The Emperor's Children

“Gorgeous writing enhances this absorbing portrait of a fascinating woman ahead of her time.”
—Toronto Star, One of the Year’s Best

“...the remarkable story of Isabella Stewart Gardner, capturing all the nuances of her character with grace and feeling. Highly recommended.”
—Historical Novel Society

“...a rich, nuanced portrait of a woman hungry to find beauty, knowledge, and her own place in the world.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Extraordinary....Vividly written in beautiful prose.”
—Provincetown Magazine

“The Lioness of Boston looks at how the city's reigning society tried to ice Gardner out but failed when she found that following her own vision—and aligning herself with likeminded rulebreakers—was more important than meeting the standards of brittle Brahmins. And whose name do we all remember now?”
—Town & Country, A Must-Read Book

“The life story of Isabella Stewart Gardner, from her marriage in 1861 to Jack Gardner, a member of Boston’s ‘High Society,’ through her death in 1924....Franklin’s lyrical, erudite style befits Belle and grabs readers’ attention.”
—Library Journal, starred review

“A vivid narrative...brims with pitch-perfect period details...cannily captures Isabella Stewart Gardner’s ambition, independence, and quirks. Fans of strong female protagonists and Gilded Age historicals will enjoy this.”
—Publishers Weekly

“The Lioness of Boston is a captivating story of a significant woman in Boston’s history who left that city a cultural legacy to last the ages. This beautiful novel will appeal to those who love masterful historical fiction, literary fiction, and stories of triumphant women who leave an indelible mark.”
—New York Journal of Books

“Emily Franklin takes us into the very heart and soul of Isabella Stewart Gardner in her engaging historical fiction novel....In Franklin’s writing, Gardner is headstrong, sensitive, and in a sense — given the blue-blooded circles in which she tried to live — cursed with a curious mind and a desperate desire to make a mark on the world. Of course, we know that Gardner does eventually do so, with the opening in 1903 of an Italian palazzo-style home as a museum to showcase her impressive collection of old masters, antiques, and objets d’art. But with a novelist’s freedom, Franklin builds the story of how this stunning art institution came to be by jumping off Gardner’s real-life tragedies, remarkable relationships with people of note, and extensive foreign travels, which provide solace to her troubled soul.”
—Martha’s Vineyard Times

“Franklin’s gorgeous, extraordinarily intimate and timely novel about Isabella Stewart Gardner showcases the life of a daring, brilliant woman who refused to be confined by the mores of her day, even as she searched for her truest self. So richly alive, I was running to Google to reacquaint myself with every mentioned painting, so moving, I wept over the tragedies and delighted in her bold success. How could any reader not be inspired by the cast of creatives including Oscar Wilde, Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and more? This book is just shatteringly good, with writing so artful, Isabella herself would surely approve.”
—Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You

“An engaging portrait of a bold yet vulnerable woman….A perennial tale of a woman fighting for her place in a man’s world.”
—Kirkus

“This beautiful, sensitively written novel explores the fascinating life of Isabella Stewart Gardner—feminist before feminism, celebrity before celebrity. Captivating and evocative, The Lioness of Boston transported me to America’s Golden Age. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Jessica Shattuck, author of The Women in the Castle

“The Lioness of Boston shows the deft touch of Edith Wharton and the delightful pomp of The Gilded Age—it’s a book both elegant and entertaining, one to savor line by line even as it carries us forward on the spirit and audacity of the narrator. Emily Franklin has rendered Isabella Stewart Gardner a classic literary heroine, one who emerges from heartbreak and defiance to shape her own life and the culture of an entire city.”
—Timothy Schaffert, author of The Perfume Thief

“A novel of blazing insight, The Lioness of Boston captures the daring life and mind of the unforgettable woman who transformed American art and the city of Boston itself. This masterfully written work of historical fiction will remind some of Lily King’s Euphoria and others of Melanie Benjamin’s The Swans of Fifth Avenue. The Lioness of Boston is the best kind of novel—at once a deft page-turner and a thrilling love story about a woman’s passion for an independent life—that will sear your mind, break your heart, and leave you forever changed.”
—Dawn Tripp, author of Georgia: A Novel

“The Lioness of Boston is a treasure trove of art, sensuality, Boston history, and more. Emily Franklin has captured Isabella Stewart Gardner’s blazing life and the light it sheds on the lives of women then and now.”
—Rachel Kadish, author of The Weight of Ink

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2023

In her sophomore adult novel (following Liner Notes), YA novelist (The Half-Life of Planets) and poet Franklin (Tell Me How You Got Here) tells the life story of Isabella Stewart Gardner, from her marriage in 1861 to Jack Gardner, a member of Boston's "High Society," through her death in 1924. Isabella (or Belle) was an heiress from New York whose father bequeathed her a fortune in 1891 that enabled her to build a house that became a museum and to purchase art for it. In the novel, her struggle to find a place in Boston society is hampered by her outspokenness and interest in subjects generally reserved for men. After the death of her son, Belle falls into a deep depression that inspires Jack to take her to Europe. The trip reawakens her to life, and she begins her exquisite collections, first of rare books and then fine art, especially paintings. She befriends many artists and intellectuals and travels abroad frequently; her growing collections soon necessitate the building of a new larger home, which would become the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, an idiosyncratic reflection of the collector's tastes and life. VERDICT Franklin's lyrical, erudite style befits Belle and grabs readers' attention. Pairs well with Ulrich Boser's The Gardner Heist, a nonfiction title about Gardner's fabulous collection and the famous unsolved robbery at the museum in 1990.—Vicki L. Gregory

Library Journal

2023-02-24
A fictionalized telling of the life of American art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose story resounds with contemporary themes.

Despite her efforts, recently married Isabella can’t fit into Boston’s high society. Her humor is too brash, her fashion is never au courant, and, most damnable of all, she’s not content to sit around with the ladies while the men get to discuss literature and art. Isabella’s early married life is marked by tragedy—first she takes a long time to conceive, then she loses her 2-year-old to pneumonia and, shortly after, suffers a miscarriage that leaves her permanently unable to get pregnant. These compounding tragedies push Isabella even further out from Boston’s elite inner circle—after all, how can a woman in the mid-1800s hope to belong to high society if she's not even a mother? But in spite of these tragedies (or, perhaps, because of them?), Isabella is more determined than ever to find her place. With her husband, Jack, Isabella sets off on a European voyage during which she meets a host of famous artists and authors, thus launching her life’s passion: collecting people and their work. Isabella’s correspondence with those we now know as greats (Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few) are delightfully sprinkled throughout the novel. Historians may bristle at Franklin’s choice to present as true aspects of Isabella’s life that others have merely speculated about, such as her possible affair with author F. Marion Crawford. Nonetheless, Franklin paints an engaging portrait of a bold yet vulnerable woman whose feminist determination will certainly appeal to contemporary readers, as will her desires for belonging, acceptance, and the often elusive quest to lead a life of purpose: “Is it wrong for a woman to want more?…Oh, how I want and want and want—to study the library arches and entertain and feel myself integral to the world as though I am the walls of a house.”

A perennial tale of a woman fighting for her place in a man’s world.

Kirkus Reviews