Beatrice: The Untold Story of a Legendary Woman of Mystery

by Sheldon Bart, Sheldoeconomics It Bari (Memoir by), Little Lords of the Desert

Book by Bart, Sheldon

135 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1998

Reviews

[Lindsay Heller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty fascinating story about Beatrice Turner, an enigmatic woman with houses in Philadelphia and Newport, Rhode Island, who never married and kept to herself. Upon her death executors discovered in her Newport home (which was painted black upon her father's death and never painted again) thousands upon thousands of paintings, mostly self portraits. This book covers what we know of Beatrice's life and then the quest to locate the paintings that were saved from a massive bonfire. It's slight so it wasn't a super deep dive, but I don't know how deep a dive can be with a woman this solitary. I enjoyed this book a lot.

[gremlinkitten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beatrice Turner was an enigma. Brought up in polite society by strict parents, she spent her life painting, writing in her journal, and watching the world change while she still wore Victorian garb. Considered an eccentric by her peers and then again by future generations, not many really knew who she was until after her death. In this slim volume, Beatrice's story is told through her surviving journals, self-portraits, sketches and other paintings. But through it all, there are still unanswered questions, so she remains a mystery to this day.

The book itself is basically good, Beatrice must have been a fascinating woman. She kept to herself but her journal reveals that she was a woman ahead of her time and I wish they hadn't burned her works, even if there were thousands of them. I guess it's a sign of the times, no one appreciated her or considered her a real artist, they just decided that because she was different, she's an outcast. The author writes well, but my biggest complaint was that there were too many unnecessary backgrounds told of people who didn't really matter to the story. Some of them I can see how it was needed but other than those few exceptions, it was just padding. Not that it's completely surprising since little is known about Beatrice, but those parts were pointless to the book as a whole. I'd stil say this is a worthwhile book that is fascinating, quick to read, and features many of Beatrice's paintings.

5 stars for Beatrice herself, 3 stars for the book, so a 4 average.