I had an appointment in Room 217 at the New York Public Library (NYPL). This is the place where books located ‘off-site’ are brought to researchers. I had emailed ahead of time and placed an order to read two books: the Egyptian Diaries of one of the characters in my novel from his trip in 1869 and 1873; and Memorials of the Royal Yacht Squadron published in 1902. I knew the Egyptian Diaries - a transcribed account of a trip down the Nile - was one of only two available in the U.S. library system; I thought the Royal Yacht book, which I found while researching the NYPL catalogue, was just as rare.


I walked into room 217 to wait in line with the others to fulfill my order. The young lady working the counter appeared casually dressed given the ostentatious nature of the room she worked in. Strategically placed narrow brass stairs led to the upper catwalks where books were once stored. Indeed, the walls around Room 217 were lined floor to ceiling with brass shelving fixtures, empty, and abandoned. I tried to imagine the previous clientele, scanning the shelves for books needed to construct dissertations; books only found in Room 217. It is was that kind of place: these hallowed shelves hosted ghosts.

When I got to the counter I told the librarian my name, handed her my card and waited while she unceremoniously checked my request in the computer system and without a word or smile, left me while she walked through a door to retrieve my books. Maybe I was expecting too much but wasn’t she just as excited as I was to have her hands on these treasures that only the NYPL and maybe one other library in the whole nation holds in its collection?

My excitement grew when she placed the box, tied with a shoe string in my hand: the first edition of the Memorials of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Inside was a first hand account of the founding of the squadron and the social life of 19th century yacht enthusiasts who flocked to the Isle of Wight in the UK.

In the past few years of conducting research for my novel I have handled a lot of old documents: letters written in cursive in the 1860s; court documents that were so brittle I was afraid they would crack and crumble in my hands; and small leather-bound diaries that have outlasted the mold and mildew of an Adirondack winter. But this book was different.

It was tied up in a preservation box and when I untied the string and opened it I found a note prominently displayed telling me to BE CAREFUL, the book was fragile. I delicately propped the book in a V and pulled out my digital camera to take pictures of the pages I thought would be most useful. And I found more than I had time to capture with my camera: a descriptive narrative only a sailor could write on the 1851 win of the yacht America, which led to the famous  America’s Cup race; photos of Commodore King Edward VII; sketches of people promenading at the landing site for the yachts; and pithy quips such as this one about prevalence of blackballing in the 1890s:

“It is precisely this black balling that makes the club to be so highly considered as it is, for in England the test of superiority is not looked for in actual worth of the thing, but in the number of people who can be prevented from enjoying it.”

The flash went off on the first picture I took with my digital camera. I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed my indiscretion and adjusted the camera settings to flash-off. I then proceeded to take pictures of at least twenty pages, only stopping when I found some passage that fascinated me. I fumbled with my camera, almost causing a small tear in a page. I blushed, glanced around again. Nobody noticed, thank God.

Then I came to end of the book and the section I had been looking for - a list of the yachts. Wouldn’t you know the one yacht I was looking for was inside the one page in the whole book that had not been split open! Nineteenth century books had pages folded as folios and people opened (some say cut) the pages as they read. Just my luck the page was hidden, uncut, and I wasn’t going to be the one to do slit it open.

Feeling and probably looking like an idiot, I placed my head sideways on the massive table and pushed the fold of the page lightly with my finger to squeeze it open enough so I could peer into the interior at the printed list of yachts. What a pain. The young man sitting next to me stopped typing in his laptop and gave me a sidewise glance. I ignored him.


Then I started to panic. I had to meet someone in less than an hour and I had spent so much time with this old book that I hadn’t even gotten to the Egyptian Diaries. Reluctantly I put the book in its preservation box thinking maybe I would come back one day and read it properly. I turned my attention to the rest of my research.

I got home and downloaded the pictures and was mortified to find they were all fuzzy. When I turned off the flash I must have messed with the other settings, including the little one that shows a hand waving, which means: turn on to reduce blurriness from shaky hands. Dammit!

I live hours away from the New York Public Library  and knew it would be weeks before I got back to New York City. My only consolation was that I took great notes. While I despondently deleted the pictures from my camera, only salvaging a few, I thought I better look up the book again so I could find the publisher’s name. Instead of going to the NYPL catalog I just typed the book title into a Google search and up came a link - the book, digitized on Project Gutenberg.

Yes, every page of that wonderful book, preserved for anyone to read at their leisure, online, available for downloading as a pdf. And none of the pages were blurry.
 
The ghosts of Room 217 were laughing at me.

Tucked away in a folder in the manuscript and archive collections at the U.S. Library of Congress, amongst the historic documents of the famous Adirondack architect, William West Durant, is an unpretentious blue envelope labeled: Fete at Karnac. Inside are several pages of the plans, written in William's hand writing, of a big feast at Karnak -  one of Egypt's largest and most ancient religious sites. The Sheik of Karnak gave William access to the temple for the supper, and in return William made “a present to the Sheik”.

The document containing the itinerary is several pages long and is dated 1869 with a ? in brackets. Dr. Durant, William’s father, bankrolled two of his son's expeditions to Egypt, one in 1869 and one in 1873.  William also went back on his yacht in 1892. It is unclear when this event actually took place.

However it is easy to understand where William got his flair for entertaining; he took cues from his father. It was a Durant trait to spend lavishly on entertainment. While President of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1866, Dr. Durant executed an extravagant event, ushering investors and politicians from the east coast to the middle of the western wilderness. There they encamped and witnessed a spectacle of mock Indian warfare (including a reenactment of an Indian raid on the railroad).
 
Like his father, William knew how to put on a show.  William had an interior room of Karnak decorated in the style of an ancient Arabian apartment, with imported carpets, wall hangings and palms. He had the temple lit up with colored fires and the entrance illuminated with 100 colored lanterns. He brought in fine china and linen. Arabian music and dancers entertained the guests during the supper with a fireworks display after the meal.
 
He ordered twenty fowl, four turkeys, four tongues, 20 loaves of bread, and a sheep. The guests were not short of libations. For the European guests, William had on hand twenty-four bottles each of champagne, claret and sherry. He had three dozen bottles of lemonade and coffee for the Arab guests.  He made sure tobacco, cigars, and pipes were on hand.
 
He must have spent days planning it because each page lists details written with military precision. He hired the Sheik’s guards and gave them instructions on where they had to be and when and who to admit to the feast (Europeans were to be admitted instantly, no questions asked). He had each action timed so that the servants knew when to serve the coffee to the Arab guests, when to light the colored fires, etc. The cost must have been astronomical.
 
The evening’s itinerary is laid out on page one:

1. Illumination of the temple with lanterns – 8 p.m.
2. Supper in the temple – 9 p.m.
3. Arab music and dancing
4. Fireworks 10 p.m.
5. Illumination of the temple with colored fires

 
Also included in the list were items that needed to be ordered from Cairo: 3-4 iron mortars for the rockets; 200 rockets; 100 paper lanterns, 50 colored glass lanterns. The list of fire-related illumination goes on for two pages. The light show would have rivaled a present-day rock concert. And although our modern sensibilities may not comprehend why anyone would be allowed to access an ancient temple in Egypt to show off their wealth, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought an influx of British and French business interests. Perhaps the Sheik was also trying to impress? By 1892, British was considered a 'Protectorate' over Egypt, there would have been many expats living there at the time William was visiting on his yacht.
 
William's penchant for entertaining was a theme throughout his life. When he moved to America in 1874 and took over building the family estate in the Adirondack Wilderness,  he entertained at his Great Camps.   Diaries of people that attended these events mention the colored fires and lanterns and farewell shows of fireworks. The inventory of the Great Camp he sold to railroad baron Collis P. Huntington lists expensive tableware and crystal, linens and china, all shipped to the interior of the mountains. William knew how to bring the extravagance and opulence of the city to the desert as well as the mountains.