This event has been rescheduled for Tuesday, November 28 at 4:00 pm on Zoom.

Anyone who previously registered for the original date on 11.14 does NOT need to re-register. The information included in your confirmation email is still valid.

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About the Book:

The Lioness of Boston is a his­toric nov­el about the life of dar­ing vision­ary Isabel­la Stew­art Gard­ner, who cre­at­ed an inim­itable lega­cy in Amer­i­can art and trans­formed the city of Boston itself. By the time Isabel­la Stew­art Gard­ner opened her 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, new­ly mar­ried and unsure of her­self, she was puz­zled by the frosty recep­tion she received from stuffy blue­bloods. At first, she strived to fit in. Fol­low­ing tragedy and upper-soci­ety rejec­tion, Isabel­la dis­cov­ered her own out­spo­ken nature, infil­trat­ing the Har­vard world, and embrac­ing friends with those soci­ety defined as ​“oth­er.” Isabel­la explores the art world, meet­ing Impres­sion­ist artists and kin­dred spir­its Hen­ry James, Oscar Wilde, and John Singer Sar­gent. A world­wide trav­el­er, she col­lects paint­ings and objects, forg­ing an impor­tant rela­tion­ship with Jew­ish immigrant/​Harvard stu­dent Bernard Beren­son, her art dealer/​confidante. An eccen­tric trail­blaz­er, Isabel­la was a mis­fit who befriend­ed oth­er out­casts only to rise into art and intel­lec­tu­al soci­ety, open­ing her own muse­um. The Lioness of Boston is a por­trait of a coura­geous soul, liv­ing life on her own terms, who shat­tered soci­ety’s expectations.

Click here to purchase this book through WHC’s Mitzvah Mall

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. She lives out­side of Boston with her family.

This lecture is presented in partnership with the Jewish Book Council.