A portrait of late 19th-century Boston and one of its most daring and celebrated women, Isabella Stewart Gardner – the connoisseur and visionary collector who created an inimitable legacy in American art and transformed the city.

When Isabella Stewart Gardner 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 the city’s coterie of “bluebloods,” she strived to fit in and had limited success. Then after two devastating tragedies, she discovered her true spirit and passion for collecting. When Isabella opened her Italian palazzo-style home as a museum 1903 to showcase her old masters, antiques, and objects d’art, she was well-known for scandalizing Boston’s upper society.

The Lioness of Boston is historical fiction – a richly detailed portrait of a time, also a cultural and social history. Author Emily Franklin reveals the day’s mores and expectations which Isabella, a feminist before feminism, rejected, opting instead for friendships with painter John Singer Sargent; writers Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Orne Jewett; and neighbor Julia Ward Howe. With novelist Claire Messud, Franklin discusses her process for researching and bringing to life this remarkable woman – her friends, her family, and her era.

Presented by the American Inspiration series from American Ancestors/NEHGS in partnership with Boston Public Library.

In celebration of 2023 Boston Book Festival, GBH's Callie Crossley of Under the Radar with Callie Crossley talks with Tiya Miles, a public historian and creative writer whose research focuses on African American, Native American and women’s history during colonial America.

Miles is the Michael Garvey Professor of History at Harvard University, the author of five prize-winning works on the history of slavery and early American race relations, and a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship recipient. She was the founder and director of the Michigan-based ECO Girls program. Her New York Times bestselling book All That She Carried won the National Book Award.

Miles’s latest book Wild Girls, examines how Harriet Tubman, Zitkála-Šá and Louisa May Alcott, among others, found self-understanding in the natural world and became women who changed America. This beautiful, meditative work of history puts girls of all races—and the landscapes they loved—at center stage and reveals the impact of the outdoors on women’s independence, resourcefulness and vision. For these trailblazing women of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, navigating the woods, following the stars, playing sports and taking to the streets in peaceful protest were not only joyful pursuits, but also techniques to resist assimilation, racism, and sexism.

Check out all the 2023 Boston Book Festival Headliners and Keynotes at bostonbookfest.org

GBH is proud to present Lily King for September’s Beyond the Page virtual event.


Lily King is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels: The Pleasing Hour (1999), The English Teacher (2005), Father of the Rain (2010), Euphoria (2014), Writers & Lovers (2020) and one collection of short stories, Five Tuesdays in Winter (2021). Her work has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Kirkus Prize, the New England Book Award for Fiction (twice), the Maine Fiction Award (twice), a Whiting Award and the B&N Discover Award. She has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway. King currently lives in Portland, Maine.


King shares insights, challenges and joys, creating memorable characters in her five novels. She also shares the inspiration behind her latest book Writers & Lovers, which explores the themes of ambition, resilience and the power of love. The protagonist embarks on a journey of self-discovery as a talented and struggling writer determined to make her dream a reality.

This event is hosted by CRB Morning Program Host, Laura Carlo.

Wendy Dodson wanted to create a "magical" place for kids and fight against book bans.

In magical realms, prejudices such as homophobia and transphobia don't exist.

After breaking out with hit YA books, Gong’s new novel is a retelling of Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra.”

Local author Rajani LaRocca says she writes books she wished she had as a kid.

Written during the pandemic, Ridker tells a story of a more optimistic time in America.

The intersectional, feminist and LGBTQ+ bookstore amplifies underrepresented voices.

Will young people become discouraged from reading?