Lecture | Books, Luv, and Envy

Almost exact contemporaries, Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950) and A. S. W. Rosenbach (1876–1952) were luminaries of the twentieth-century rare book world. Both were elite collection-builders, savvy professional operators, ambitious self-mythmakers, indefatigable bons vivants, and brilliant bibliophiles. By the late 1920s, Greene was director of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, overseeing what was arguably the nation’s finest institutional collection of rare printed books and bindings, medieval manuscripts, and literary and historical manuscripts. Rosenbach was the country’s leading antiquarian bookseller, his firm headquartered in Philadelphia with a New York showroom located not far from the Morgan on East 51st Street. While both were shrewd enough to capitalize upon each other’s stature and connections, they were also fortunate to find, and enjoy, a friendship that matured during the twilight of their lives.

This talk is a preview of the essay “‘A Race Apart: The Bibliophilic Networks of Belle da Costa Greene and A. S. W. Rosenbach,” to be published in a forthcoming book on Greene and the antiquarian book trade (eds. Laura Cleaver and Natalia Fantetti).

CHRISTINE NELSON is the former Drue Heinz Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts at the Morgan Library & Museum, where she curated exhibitions on such topics as the journal of Henry David Thoreau, the life and work of Charlotte Brontë, and the creation of The Little Prince. She curated the exhibition J. Pierpont Morgan: Building the Bookman’s Paradise and contributed to the catalog, which received the 2025 book award from the Victorian Society in America. She was the 2025–26 Faith Andrews Fellow at Winterthur in support of a forthcoming project related to Shaker women’s reading practices.

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