As a librarian and writer, it is fun to read about topics that somehow involve books, whether in terms of libraries, bookstores, or even other writers. It’s like a behind-the-scenes look into the career and subject matter that you have devoted your life to pursuing. And of course it is impossible NOT to compare the experiences in the book to your own!
This was the case with my most recent read, The Personal Librarian, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. This book had been on my list for a while and hits several of my interest areas – historical fiction, libraries, and the Gilded Age. It is a fascinating story about the real-life librarian tasked with curating and maintaining the library of the demanding, uber-wealthy financier and banker J.P. Morgan. Starting in 1905, Belle da Costa Greene was hired for this challenging task. No small feat, since not only was she a woman during a time when women had yet to even gain the right to vote, but she was also a woman of color whose family chose to identify as white to avoid discrimination and racism. Born Belle Marion Greener, the light-skinned Greene, her mother and siblings changed their surname from Greener to Greene and claimed Portuguese heritage in order to pass as white.
Greene attended the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies and then Amherst College’s Summer School of Library Economy, where she began her library science training. She then honed her library and cataloguing skills and gained a great deal of rare books knowledge while working at Princeton University. This in itself was intriguing – learning more about the experiences of being a librarian at a prestigious university at the turn of the twentieth century. (Oh, how things have changed in today’s digital age!) While at Princeton, she met Morgan’s nephew, Junius Spencer Morgan II, who suggested Greene would be perfect to run his uncle’s library. Greene interviewed and got the job, a life-changing experience for both her and Mr. Morgan.
Greene had to overcome A LOT, living in fear her entire life that her true identity would be revealed. Her father was Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and well-known advocate for equality, but when her parents divorced and her mother decided to move Belle and her other children to New York and away from their Black community in Washington D.C., she largely lost that connection with him, his family and that whole part of her heritage. Nevertheless, she thrived and succeeded at what she did, which was serving as an archivist, an art and fine books dealer, and a confidant to Morgan, ultimately building him a world-class collection and becoming a society fixture and powerful negotiator within the art and book world.
Even though the book is a work of historical fiction, much of it stems from Greene’s experiences. Authors Benedict and Murray acknowledged that they “endeavored to share the life and legacy of Belle da Costa Greene as accurately as possible,” discussing some of their challenges and the changes they made in the book’s Historical Note section. The end result is an intriguing look behind the scenes of the library and fine art world during this pivotal point in history, as well as a treatise on systemic racism and the effects of microaggressions so rampant within the United States. Belle was hugely successful and led an extremely interesting life, yet could never fully acknowledge her true background. She also never married or had children, as she was worried this could possibly expose her secret. As a fellow librarian, I admire her spunk, tenaciousness, and many contributions to the library community while wishing she had been able to truly enjoy all her successes while being recognized for her true identity.
Some other similar books on my “to-read” list:
- The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss – A history of the bookshop drawing on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers.
- The Bookshop at Water’s End by Patti Callahan Henry – A story about two women who spent their childhood summers in a small southern town and later reunite with the bookshop owner who factored into their past.
- The Library at the Edge of the World by Felicity Hayes-McCoy – A novel about a local librarian on the West Coast of Ireland who must find a way to rebuild her community and her own life.
- The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George – A novel about a Paris bookstore owner who calls himself a literary apothecary and finally embarks on his own search for his lost true love.
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig – A novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived.
- Publishing: A Writer’s Memoir by Gail Godwin – A memoir about the personal story of a writer’s hunger to be published, the pursuit of that goal, and then the long haul that comes with it.
- Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern – A novel about the unlikely friendship between a middle-aged woman trying to start over and an intelligent, unusual teenage girl that blossoms when she’s assigned community service in her local library
