Love in the Library

“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time." –Jane Austen, Mansfield Park 

Love and romance are nearly universal features of literature around the world and throughout time, though cultural norms surrounding love, who is allowed to love whom, and how love is allowed to be expressed are as variable as Jane Austen’s quote suggests. And although romance fiction is a multibillion-dollar industry with more readers in America than any other genre, there are no large American special collections libraries with significant romance collections. Why?

The answer is as simple as it is sad: romance has historically been written and consumed primarily by women, and the collections that populate our libraries and cultural institutions were primarily built by men. Unlike science fiction and detective fiction—both genres robustly collected by special collections libraries since the mid-20th century—romance fiction is seldom taken seriously. It is dismissed as formulaic, smutty, or even dangerous—planting ideas in readers’ heads that women can take the lead in becoming emotionally and sexually satisfied. 

In 2021, the Lilly Library became the first major American special collections library to take romance seriously—and we owe the foundation of this visionary collection to author, scholar, and antiquarian bookseller Rebecca Romney, cofounder of the bookselling firm Type Punch Matrix. A romance reader herself as well as an expert on the history of the book, Romney set out to assemble a collection of 100 important works in the history of romance fiction from 1769 to 1999. Because some of the hundred entries in the catalog contain multiple titles (such as the first 1,500 Harlequin Presents romances), these substantial and carefully researched selections became the core of the Lilly’s new romance collection. One of the things we love most about Romney’s selections is her focus on diversity—the history of the romance novel has never been only about straight white men and women.

As we continue to add historical and 21st century titles to the collection, our focus remains on the importance of the romance genre in the history of the book, the ways in which it empowered readers and writers, and also on the potential the genre holds for those who are not taken seriously by people in power to tell their stories of finding a “happily ever after” ending.

Love in the Library was curated by Rebecca Baumann, with assistance from Sarah McElroy Mitchell and Erin Chiparo. Exhibition designed by Jenny Mack with graphic design by David Orr.

To learn more about the collection that served as the foundation of this exhibition, please see The Romance Novel in English by Rebecca Romney, published by Type Punch Matrix and available as a free ebook.