Hello, my name is Celia Applebaum and my sisters and I inherited our father’s Arcadia Rare Bookshop here on Book Row. Book Row is really several blocks between Union Square and Astor Place in Manhattan. You wouldn’t recognize it today, but here in 1915, it’s famous throughout the world and attracts every kind of book lover from international dealers to street urchins with sticky fingers.
Right now I’m just coming out of Cooper Union, which is at the south end of the Row. It’s the first free college in the states and I’ve just finished listening to a talk by Margaret Sanger. I’m running late – I seem to always be running late – so I have to hurry, but I want to show you all the wonderful things and people of Book Row. Across the street from Astor Place is Bible House, a large building which prints huge amounts of bibles as well as other liturgical books. Half way across the Avenue is an island that is an entrance to the subway. It’s still there for you to see today.
But you won’t have seen Wanamaker’s Department store. Oh, it is grand. And so big it takes up two whole blocks. And so high they built a walkway in the air between the fourth floors so you don’t have to go outside to get to the other half of the store. When my mother was alive we used to go just to stand on the walkway and look down at all the people on the street, so small they looked like doll house people.
I can tell it’s almost opening time because all the book sellers are crowded around Mr. Wickes’s newsstand for the news from Europe. They say a war is brewing. I hope they’re wrong. It’s good to see Mr. Wickes. We were afraid that awful Anthony Comstock was going to arrest him just for selling some souvenirs of New York City. Comstock calls himself “Mr. Morality.” He hates books and wants to destroy them all.
You can see now that a lot of the stores we pass are bookstores, some are big and have big showcase windows in front. Some you can only reach by going up a narrow staircase to a second floor. There are even bookstores in basements where the lighting is so dim you can barely see the titles. There are so many bookstores I sometimes wonder how there is any room left for the other stores. But there is. First there’s the back entrance to Grace Church with its beautiful stained-glass window and a lovely garden where I sometimes clandestinely pass important information to other women on topics of women’s health and well-being.
Ah, there is Mr. Krause, the butcher on the corner. He always saves us a nice slab of bacon on Mondays. And several bookstores later, Mrs. Franchetti is waiting at the bakery with a crusty loaf we’ll have for breakfast.
Everyone is busy getting ready to open the stores, pulling their sale bins outside to entice a passing pedestrian, and up ahead Mr. Kirsch has just stepped out of the door to his Fine Art Books shop to sweep the sidewalk. The whole neighborhood knows it’s five to nine. We can tell time by Mr. Kirsch’s broom.
I’m almost home, but we have to hurry. That’s my friend Yannis going into the print shop and next to it – here it is. Arcadia Rare Books, with its two bowed display windows, and those are my two sisters, waiting impatiently for me to help open the shop.
We live upstairs on the fourth floor. My oldest sister, Olivia, has her workshop on the third floor where she restores old manuscripts and sees wealthy book collectors. The second floor is for better books and the first is an eclectic mix of new and used books on every subject. When I told my father I wanted to go to college like Olivia did, he told me I had the whole world on the first floor and could learn anything I wanted just by opening a book. I knew what he meant, but I still want to go to college. My middle sister, Daphne, just wants to get married. She only reads books with happy endings, hoping she’ll meet someone like Mr. Darcy who will sweep her off her feet. Fat chance. But I do hope she gets her wish.
If I had more time I would take you another block to see Union Square. It’s a beautiful park with trees and sidewalks, and though it does have a reputation for holding political rallies of every ilk, we mainly go to listen to the brass band in the summer evenings.
So there it is, my neighborhood, Book Row. It’s just a few short blocks, but it holds the entire world on its shelves.
THE SISTERS OF BOOK ROW by Shelley Noble
A thrilling and timely historical novel of books, banning, and the women who helped save New York’s famed Book Row, from bestselling author Shelley Noble.
1915: Manhattan’s Book Row, an eclectic jumble of forty bookshops along Fourth Avenue, is the mecca for rare book buyers from around the world, and the haunt of locals looking for a bargain. It is also the target of the most vicious censor in American history—Anthony Comstock.
And home to three sisters who vow to stop him.
For the three Applebaum sisters, the narrow, four-storied Arcadia Rare Bookshop is the only home they’ve ever known. Olivia, the oldest, is an expert in restoring rare manuscripts. Daphne, the outgoing middle sister, oversees the retail shop and is a favorite with their customers. Celia, the youngest, is left to dust and catalogue, but often sneaks out to do heaven knows what. Little do her sisters know, Celia has joined a group of young people who secretly print and distribute articles on women’s health by hiding them within the pages of ordinary cookbooks, household hints, and sewing patterns, despite the personal risk.
Meanwhile, the Comstock Laws threaten anybody who owns or circulates “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” publications. Even classic literature or fine art could send a person to jail. In the face of such oppression, Celia and the booksellers of Book Row band together. But secrets and a mysterious stranger mean the fate of the famed Book Row is anything but secure.
Women’s Fiction Historical [ HarperCollins, On Sale: March 3, 2026, Trade Paperback / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9780063423916 / eISBN: 9780063423893 ]
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About Shelley Noble
Shelley Noble is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Whisper Beach, Beach Colors, and The Tiffany Girls, the story of the largely unknown women artists responsible for much of Tiffany’s legendary glasswork, as well as several historical mysteries. A former professor, professional dancer and choreographer, she now lives in New Jersey halfway between the shore, where she loves visiting lighthouses and vintage carousels, and New York City, where she delights in the architecture, the theatre, and ferreting out the old stories behind the new. Shelley is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and Historical Novel Society.
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