“Love, Lust, Art and Betrayal” Best-selling Author Emily Franklin to Speak at The Needham Public Lib

Emily Franklin, best-selling author of The Lioness of Boston, a novel based on the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, will speak about her new novel, Love & Other Monsters, April 26 at the Needham Free Public Library.

Franklin’s new novel is based on Frankenstein author Mary Shelley’s real-life, overlooked stepsister, Claire Clairmont. During the cold, scandalous summer of 1816, Clairmont and famous literary figures—including her sister and the poets Percy Shelley and Lord Byron—gathered at a mansion on Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Their interactions resulted in Shelley’s classic book and months of love, lust, art, and betrayal as stormy as the Year with No Summer’s weather outside.

Franklin is the bestselling author of more than twenty books including a poetry collection, Tell Me How You Got Here. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, Guernica, and The Journal of the American Medical Association, among many other places, as well as featured and read aloud on National Public Radio, and named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries. The Lioness of Boston is in its ninth printing and was recently featured as a clue on Jeopardy!.

Ms. Franklin has graciously agreed to discuss both books.

The public is invited to this free program presented by the Friends of the Needham Public Library in the library’s Community Room at 1139 Highland Avenue, Needham, from 2-3:30 PM, Sunday, April 26. A question-and answer period will follow the presentation. The book will be available for purchase and the author’s autograph.

Seats are limited and registration is required. Register at https://needhamlibrary.org/events/. For more information, please contact Gay Ellen Dennett, program specialist, at gdennett@minlib.net, 781-455-7559 x223.