Good Books: The Personal Librarian

The Personal Librarian is about Belle da Costa Greene who had worked at the Princeton University Library and was hired by J.P. Morgan in the early 1900s to catalogue his great collection of manuscripts. The main character has a secret that she must hide at all costs. She was actually born as Belle Marion Greener, a Black woman who hides her racial identity in order to thrive in a world that otherwise would not have accepted her.

The book is compelling, and it prompted me to read Heidi Ardizzone’s An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege, a non-fiction account of the same story. I found that while some of the conversations between the main characters were certainly imagined in the novel, they do seem to be grounded in existing correspondence. The real Belle actually burned most of these correspondences to preserve her secret. I recommend both books—they prompt important conversations about racism, equity, and opportunity.