The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Murray Belle

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Murray Belle is a historical fiction novel about J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian. This is actually a true story which stays fairly close to the known facts. The authors have invented dialogue. The book was not my choice. My wife and I were on a long-drive vacation and my first choice was a murder mystery by David Baldacci, who I normally love, but found his last book in the Atlee Pine series to be particularly ridiculous – so it was Jean’s turn to choose what to listen too next, and she proved herself to be right again (a comment that she loves to hear). 

 

This was a great book about Belle da Costa Green who was a very light skinned black woman who successfully passed herself off as white. Her father was the first black man who graduated from Harvard, and his relationship with his daughter always emphasized her knowledge of the fine arts, a subject that she developed much farther than what father knew. While her father spent his life trying to promote Negro rights, her mother was more concerned about the quality of the immediate lives of her children. It was apparent to the protagonist’s mother that if the kids could pass themselves off as white, they would have much better lives. That disagreement led to a divorce and da Costa Green grew up with her mother. Given the era, the late 19^th century and first decades of the 20^th century, Ms. Da Costa Green pursued life as a white woman, knowing that if her secret was discovered, her meaningful life in the arts community would promptly end and she would be shunned by white society.

 

She graduated from Princeton in the library sciences, and then worked there for a couple years until she was offered a job by Morgan. She went on to develop Morgan’s most remarkable library. The book describes the excitement of acquiring rare and ancient manuscripts as well as pieces of fine art. The risk of discovery of da Costa Green’s origin was a constant risk. She had a long love affair with a married art dealer, and when she died she became the director of the library until two years before her death, at which time she retired. 

 

This book did a better job of capturing the essence of racism in this era than anything I’ve read before. Although you’ve never heard of da Costa Green, she was a famous and celebrated person in her time. In my opinion, this book gets a 5/5 rating.