The Lioness of Boston

A compelling historical novel, driven by an unforgettable heroine: Isabella Stewart Gardner. Scandalizing uptight Bostonians with her forthright opinions and unique style, philanthropist and collector Gardner became a living legend when she opened her Italian palazzo-style home as a museum, showcasing her collection of old masters, antiques and objects d'art. She was seen as a trailblazer, a woman unafraid of controversy, painted by Sargent in a portrait of daring décolletage, fond of such stunts as walking a pair of lions around the Boston Public Garden. Yet, before she inhabited the role of the outrageous and brilliant woman history has depicted her to be, Isabella was twenty years old, newly married to wealthy trader Jack Gardner, unsure of herself and puzzled by the frosty reception she received. In any era when women were supposed to fade into the wallpaper, and female conversation was expected to be decorative, quiet and seemly, Isabella found herself boycotted by polite society because she was not afraid to express personal views and controversial ideas. Ostracized by women as an unpredictable flirt who did not know how to behave and admonished by men for having opinions on matters that should only be the purview of her husband, Isabella struggled to fulfill a role she thought would give her satisfaction. In Becoming Isabella, Emily Franklin shows how Isabella, after the twin tragedies of her young son's death and a subsequent miscarriage convinced her she would never again have children, rejected the place society had consigned her to and discovered her spirit. This novel follows Isabella as, freed by travel, she discovers the world of art, ideas and letters, meeting such kindred spirits as Henry James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Berthe Morisot, George Sand, John Singer Sargent and Oscar Wilde. We follow Isabella from Paris, London and Venice, to Egypt and Asia; we observe her develop her keen eye for paintings and objects; and we see her meet some of the progressives and feminists who were ready to transform nineteen century thinking in the twentieth century. Becoming Isabella is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and determined to live on her own terms.