HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

Isabella Stewart Gardner was a consummate collector, generous philanthropist, and rabid Red Sox fan. Today, she’s best known as the namesake of an art museum in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood (and if we’re being honest, the museum is probably best known for a famous 1990 heist). This week, Jake interviews author Emily Franklin, whose new novel The Lioness of Boston explores the person behind the Gardner fortune. They discuss the great romance, tragedy, and scandal of Isabella’s life, the different personas she tried on throughout different eras of her life, and her obsession with the idea of a legacy. Emily will tell us why Boston at first turned up its nose at wealthy young Isabella, but later came to embrace the flamboyant and eccentric Mrs Jack as one of our most colorful and generous characters. Emily will also describe what makes historical fiction different from biography, and the freedom and limitations that the genre brings.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/283/

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Emily Franklin is the author of over 15 novels for young adults and adults, as well as contributing to anthologies on topics as varied as surviving high school and the films of John Hughes. The Lioness of Boston is her first work of historical fiction, recounting the life and imagining the inner world of adoptive Bostonian Isabella Stewart Gardner. She was inspired to write the book by a lifetime of visits to Isabella’s museum, and now having written the book gives her a new perspective on the museum she’s known so long. Emily lives in the Boston area with, as her bio points out, “two dogs large enough to be lions.”

The bold eye contact, the revealing dress… the Sargent portrait Isabella Stewart Gardner Cleopatra’s Barge, via Historic New England

• Learn more about John Singer Sargent and Isabella
• Hear Emily Franklin speak about The Lioness of Boston at the Boston Athenaeum on October 18 (also available as a virtual event).