The Personal Librarian

In 1905–06, financier J. Pierpont Morgan hires a young librarian from Princeton, Belle da Costa Greene, to build and run the library for his rare books, manuscripts, and art. Belle proves a brilliant, daring negotiator, becomes a fixture of New York society, and eventually directs the Morgan Library for decades, including under Morgan's son Jack. Her public identity, however, is an invention: born Belle Marion Greener, she is the daughter of Richard Greener, Harvard's first Black graduate and a civil-rights advocate. Passing as white under an invented Portuguese ancestry, she must sever open ties with her father, police every friendship and romance, and live with the fear that exposure would destroy her career and her family's support. Benedict and Murray's historical novel, a Good Morning America Book Club pick, restores Greene — long a footnote in Morgan history — to the center of her own story.

Author: Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray · Original publisher: Berkley (New York), 2021