Fenway Court, as The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was known during her lifetime, with it's wonderful integration of art and architecture, is the premier self-portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner. This bio, Mrs. Jack, is a thorough though slightly confusing look at ISG's eccentric life and life work of creating and establishing her collection and the building to house it. Her impact on Boston society is amusing and probably greater than can be conveyed in a book. Little about her interior life, lots about her her many, many friend and musical, artistic and literary proteges. (I had to wonder what her loyal husband thought of these mostly young men.) Clearly written in another era, I enjoyed the style though its the tendency to jump from one situation and person to another that makes it confusing. I appreciated seeing the caring side of this woman who grieved her son and husband, was loyal to friends, raised their nephews as their own and was generous to many both before and after death. I will appreciate the Gardner all the more for having read this.

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