Surrounded by the artists, writers and musicians who made up her court in Boston as they did in Venice, Isabella Stewart Gardner, a passionate art collector, was as revered and sought after as royalty. Henry James was inspired by the rich and powerful Gardner, as well as by the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice, when he wrote his novel The Wings of the Dove. Gardner was to recreate a larger-than-life version of Palazzo Barbaro in Boston, which is now the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.These dazzling letters bring to life James’s passion for Venice and the Palazzo Barbaro, and serve as an introduction to the fascinating world of Isabella Stewart Gardner herself.
Over de auteur
Henry James (1843-1916) is one of the most prominent figures of American and British Literature. A prolific novelist, essayist and literary critic, James was much concerned with questions of identity, belonging, creativity and consciousness. He is perhaps most famous for his novels The Bostonians and The Portrait of a Lady, and for his ghost story The Turn of the Screw.