Victoria Christopher Murray
Author of The Personal Librarian Coming to Alexandria Book Festival
“I always knew I would become an author.”
Victoria Christopher Murray
Victoria Christopher Murray co-author of The Personal Librarian, is coming to the Alexandria Festival of the Book. The Personal Librarian was an instantaneous best seller when released and has now sold over a million copies. It was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, a Notable Book of the Year by The Washington Post and was a Good Morning America Book Club pick.
The Personal Librarian is a novel, historical fiction, about Belle da Costa Greene, who as a young woman, became J.Pierpont Morgan’s “personal librarian” and led the acquisition of much of the collection in the acclaimed Morgan Library. Belle was in her twenties, working in the library at Princeton, when she was selected
by Morgan to curate a collection of books, rare manuscripts and artwork. She moved into a competitive art and museum world dominated by men, as well as into New York society. She was also a black woman passing for white, claiming a Portuguese ancestry. In fact, she was the daughter of Richard Greener, the first black to graduate from Harvard and a civil rights activist.
Victoria Christopher Murray is a best-selling author who co-authored The Personal Librarian with Marie Benedict. The two also collaborated on The First Ladies, a story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune. Murray has a BA from Hampton University and an MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business. She worked in business and financial services prior to turning to novels. She divides her time between Washington, DC and LA.