“Hamilton” and the Books That Hamilton Held - The New Yorker

"The Society Library, as readers of Ron Chernow’s fine foundational biography of Hamilton know, played an outsize role in the run-up to the American Revolution, chiefly because it was one of the few educational institutions in New York that was outside the hold of the Crown or the Church. Formed as a kind of book co-op, in 1754, it blessedly persists as a lending library to this day, having long ago moved uptown, to the north side of Seventy-ninth Street, between Madison and Park, after a long stay on University Place.



Astonishingly, a little inquiry proves that the library not only still keeps records of all the books that Burr and Hamilton borrowed (and, mostly, returned) but also has many of the books themselves—not merely the same titles, but the exact same books that Hamilton and Burr handled and thumbed and read and learned from. What’s more, it turns out that, by a series of benevolent bequests, the library also has a few choice and telling letters from Burr and Hamilton and even from Eliza Hamilton—“best of wives and best of women,” as Manuel’s lyrics have it—all speaking around, and eventually to, the famous and fatal affair. So, hearing this news, we quickly—as a writer would have put it in this magazine in Thurber’s day—hied ourselves over to the Society Library’s reading room, and went to work to find out more."



“Hamilton” and the Books That Hamilton Held - The New Yorker