The club embraced some ideas that were radical for the time, such as access to birth control for women. In 1993, the last volume of Virginia Woolf’s diaries as well as a first edition of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne disappear.Īs the mystery behind the thefts continues, Fiona Davis shows what it meant to be an independent woman in 1913 and in 1993.Ī friend encourages Laura to join the Heterodoxy Club, a real women’s club that met every other week in Greenwich Village.

During the 1913-14 timeline, a first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass goes missing, along with Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe. The New York Public Library’s Fifth Avenue location doesn’t lend out books to patrons, so only a few people can access its books at any time.įiona Davis introduces the reader to some of the library’s most precious objects through the thefts. Through Sadie we learn that her grandmother became a famous essayist, and Sadie is looking for more material on Laura Lyons to include in an exhibition of the Berg Collection.īoth timelines have a string of rare book thefts in common. Sadie is Laura Lyons’s granddaughter but her mother Pearl never talks about living at the library. The Berg Collection consists of rare manuscripts and other items that belonged to famous authors.

In 1993, Sadie Donovan works as the curator for the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection.

She pursues a degree at Columbia University’s journalism school even though her professors won’t let female students write about serious topics. Though she cares about her children and her husband, Laura finds herself wanting more out of her life. In 1913, Laura Lyons lives with her husband Jack, her son Henry, and her daughter Pearl above the New York City Public Library where Jack works. This historical fiction novel has two timelines: one in 1913-14 New York City and one in 1993 New York City.

Sadie book review