Chasing beauty: the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner

Prologue: Notes on a museum

Part 1: Becoming belle. New york girl

'A far-famed city'

Mr. and Mrs. Jack

'Remaining dear ones'

Part II: Around the world. A return

'Mrs. Gardner's album'

'Zodiacal light'

'Millionaire bohemienne'

The comopolitan

Part III: Motion and light. The way of the traveler

'A whirlwind of suggestion'

'The fiddling place'

Love and power

Seeing wonder

Part IV: Fancy things and ordinary objects. 'Dazzling'

In the middle of things

The concert

To remake the world

'The age of Mrs. Jack'

A poem

'List of things for the museum'

'I always knew where to find him'

Part V: One-woman museum. Fenway court

God is in the details

Unfathomable heart

'Lonesome cloud'

'The whole interesting world of Paris'

'Undying beauty and light'

Part VI: A dream of youth. Seeing and hearing modernism

The dancer

'Blood and thunder'

'Very much alive'

Spring

Epilogue: Lacrimae rerum, or the tears of things

Acknowledgments

A note on sources

List of illustrations

Notes

Selected bibliography

Index.