REVIEW: Miss Greene’s Secret

Miss Greene’s Secret: Based on the True Story of the Black Librarian who Shaped the Morgan Library
By Nicolas Antona and Nina Jacqmin
152 pages/Abrams ComicArts/$25.99 (hc)

One of the terrific developments in graphic novels over the last decade or so has been the discovery of significant people whose contributions are forgotten. Creators find a nugget or suggestion and begin exploring, and before you know it, you get to read a book that illuminates the people and their work. In this case, we have the story of African-American Belle Marion Greener (1879–1950), one of several daughters, who chose to pass as White in the early 1900s. Taking the name Belle da Costa Greene and telling people she was of Portuguese descent, she studied bibliography, a new concept, at Amherst before attending Princeton and going on to a series of library roles, ultimately being placed as the chief librarian for financial tycoon J. Pierpont Morgan.

Through the years, we see Belle struggle with her identity, eschewing motherhood and even marriage despite several romances. She was dedicated to her books and to Morgan, who is said to have harbored deep feelings for this much younger woman. Her greatest love was Bernard Berenson, a married art historian (himself Jewish, passing as gentile); while she burned his letters, he kept over 600 of hers over the years, which helped inform this lovely work.

Today, the Morgan Library & Museum is a world-famous institution, but under Belle’s 43-year tenure it was organized, reduced in size due to debt, and then opened to the public. Her work has gone largely unrecognized, with scant prior publication, and it first saw print last year in France as Le Secret de Miss Greene.

The writing is detailed enough to bring the players to life, and Jacqmin’s illustrations do a fine job as she grows and the years pass.

If I could fault it for anything, the relationship between Belle and her sisters is there, but it could use more depth. The same is true of her father, Richard Greener, who abandoned the family early on and later became a distinguished advocate for Black rights.

This is a loving portrait of a fiercely talented and intelligent woman whose contributions are finally being recognized.