Overview
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 blue bloods, she strove 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 an eccentric trailblazer, 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. 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.
Full Product Details
Author: Emily Franklin ,
Nancy Peterson
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Imprint: Tantor Audio
ISBN: 9798212946742
Publication Date: 29 August 2023
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Audio
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Author Information
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 Gardener Museum, she lives outside of Boston with her family, including two dogs large enough to be lions. Nancy Peterson, winner of the prestigious Audio Publishers Association Audie Award, is a veteran actor and voice-over artist. Nancy has a penchant for dialects, diving deep into the study of language. Her narration style, summed up by AudioFile magazine, ""creates the sense of listening to a play instead of a straightforward reading."" She began her narrating career with petty theft. As a precocious eleven-year-old, the allure of her dad's brand-new cassette recorder she was strictly forbidden to touch, was too tempting to bear. With an Encyclopedia Brown paperback and the recorder, she began a journey she continues to love.
