The Mount Vernon Street Warrens: A Boston Story, 1860-1910

The fortune of the Warren family, derived from a Maine papermill, enabled five siblings to grow up in the elite society of Boston's Beacon Hill in the early 1900s. In telling the stories of those children who became notable for eccentricity and philanthropy, Green ( Children of the Sun ) focuses on Ned Warren, a homosexual and mover in the international movement of aestheticism, who was determined to lead a ``grand but blighted life.'' The impact of the Warrens resonated in Boston society and abroad, in Oxford and Greece, where their reputation as philanthropists and art collectors linked them with leading figures of the period. This somewhat jumbled tale of a family's sundering through greed and suicide is enlivened with anecdotes involving George Santayana, Louis Brandeis, the Cabots and Lowells and others with whom the Warrens engaged in the culture and liberal politics that defined Boston in their time. (Apr.)