The Lioness of Boston

Some sections are set in 1924, the year in which Isabella died, and others unfold chronologically between 1861 and 1903, the year in which Isabella opened her museum. This structure juxtaposes young Isabella with mature Isabella and showcases how she develops over the course of more than four decades.

There are records of many of the events that took place in Isabella’s life, but it is impossible to know what she may have been thinking and feeling during these experiences. A work of historical fiction differs from a biography in that it gives the author license to invent, change, or augment details, as well as to turn a historical figure into a literary protagonist. Emily Franklin follows these conventions. The real Isabella’s life acts as a springboard from which Franklin draws inspiration to imagine the fictional Isabella’s life and interior world. Franklin both builds on and deviates from real-life events, such as when describing conversations, correspondence, and details.

Franklin portrays Isabella as someone who is both heavily memorialized and enigmatic. In the Prologue, Isabella directly addresses the reader, and by extension, the visitor to her museum. Everything in the museum and the way it is arranged reflects Isabella’s specifications. When it comes to her vision, she is passionate and steadfast. As she stipulates, “[K]eep everything the way it has been […] nothing new will be acquired. Nothing sold” (xii). Historically, Isabella Stewart Gardner stipulated in her will that nothing in her collection or its arrangement be changed, and this specification has been honored up to the present day.

In the novel, Isabella reveals a strong desire to be memorialized and for everyone who enters her namesake space to have a sense of who she was. At the same time, Isabella explores the idea that she has never been fully known or understood. The novel commemorates her legacy but also explores her subjectivity in a way that a collection of static objects cannot.

The opening chapters establish some of Isabella’s key motivations and the novel’s primary conflict. Isabella longs to have projects, goals, and a sense that she is having an impact on the world around her. Isabella lived a cosmopolitan and stimulating life before her marriage. She was born into a wealthy New York family and lived in Paris during her formative adolescent years. Isabella also traveled to Italy and had her first experiences admiring European art and architecture. Because Isabella had such an interesting and varied life before marrying Jack, she finds marriage and her new life in Boston constricted and stifling. For many upper-class women in the 19th century, marriage represented an opportunity for relative autonomy and freedom, but Isabella is left at a loss.

Isabella’s wealth adds to her frustration, as it gives her resources and leisure without purpose. Franklin makes a significant structural choice by beginning the novel shortly after Isabella’s marriage. In many works of fiction, especially those written during Isabella’s era, marriage would be the conclusion. The Lioness of Boston is, in some ways, a portrait of marriage itself. It reveals that many of the complexities in Isabella’s life and identity begin with her nuptials.

Isabella’s confusion about life as a married woman is exacerbated by her struggle to conceive. She wants to experience motherhood and is also subject to social expectations that she will find meaning and fulfillment in having a large family. In the mid-19th century, a woman’s role was largely seen as providing emotional support and domestic comforts to her husband. By marrying a wealthy man with a high-ranking position in Boston society, Isabella is expected to be a society figure, a gracious hostess, and a devoted mother.

Through Isabella’s struggles, the novel explores Resilience in the Wake of Tragedy. Isabella’s desire to be a mother is one of the novel’s key conflicts. Her difficulty conceiving leaves her frustrated and lonely. She laments: “If I have neither social circle nor child, what will I do?” (45). While this experience is devastating for her, it also begins to shape her in foundational ways. Because she doesn’t immediately step into the role of motherhood, Isabella spends more time reflecting on other desires and possible sources of meaning. She also becomes more comfortable with the possibility of unconventional paths as her own life doesn’t unfold seamlessly.

Isabella’s keen interest in the design and construction of 152 Beacon Street, her home with Jack, foreshadows her passion for architecture and curating beautiful spaces. Isabella’s interest in the construction of the house signals her status as unconventional and idiosyncratic, as a woman in this era would not be expected to take an interest in engineering, architecture, or construction. The mansion symbolizes Isabella’s desire to design and customize her own fate and lifestyle: Isabella wants to construct her future just as attentively and intentionally as one would design a house. The mansion symbolizes a marriage in which Isabella comes to the table as a relatively equal player with expectations of being a full partner.