The Art of Scandal: The Life and Times of Isabella Stewart Gardner

"The narrative is one long, messy, juicy gossip peppered with exclamations. . . . But gossip is an effective rhetoric for this life. . . . Gardner may have hoped, by burning her letters, to escape capture in yet another book plotted like a novel by Henry James. She might have liked this garrulous, sociable portrait of her time."-- Diane Wood Middlebrook, "New York Times Book Review" (front page review) "This intimate engrossing biography finally gives the creator of one of the world's great museums credit for her achievements. . . . The author's expertise in American cultural history greatly enriches his narrative.""-- The New Yorker" "It's the unauthorized story of the grandest of Boston's grand dames that any sentient person wants to read. "The Art of Scandal" has a delightful sense of the city that once was the Athens of America."-- Alex Beam, "Boston Globe" "He dares to paint in words the woman John Singer Sargent painted on canvas. . . . She is always engagingly human and brimmi