The English department remembers Dorothea von Moltke, co-owner of Labyrinth Books, a great friend to so many of our faculty and students, and the steward of a vital center of intellectual life in Princeton, for town and university alike. Labyrinth has sold us our books since 2007. The store has also been a place where the books we write come into the world: many of us finally knew they were real when Dorothea introduced them from the podium downstairs.
Dorothea was “as genial as she was erudite,” recalls Susan Wolfson, “as welcoming as she was elegant. Her introductions to a wide range of speakers and their books always reflected her engaged reading and her talent for bridging to an audience who may not yet have read the work that has drawn them to the occasion…Dorothea filled her booklove with active, and activist passions.” Sophie Gee remembers “her smile, accompanied by profound intelligence and thoughtfulness. Labyrinth is and was a very special bookstore, and it reflects Dorothea's spirit of community and conversation. These words don’t convey just how special a person she was, even for those who only knew her a little. Her openness and vision were infectious and inclusive. She was such an important part of the Princeton community.”
Nigel Smith recalls her good humor, even under duress: invited to play at the store with his band Rackett, “I shall never forget the polite horror of the staff as we burst through the load-in rear door with the amps and the PA system.” But the show was another great Labyrinth triumph. Anne Cheng testifies to the influence of those six-o’clock events: “Dorothea was a force in our little town. I remain grateful to the many rich conversations that have taken place at Labyrinth that she made possible over the years.” And Starry Schor remembers her vividly as the figure in the middle of it all: “Dorothea had the warmth of a friend, the intellect of a polymath, and the bearing of a goddess. Labyrinth has always been suffused with her presence, and it always will be. I am so grateful to her for bringing such a wealth of ideas and voices into our community.”
Dorothea studied political science at Yale as an undergraduate and received her Ph.D. from Columbia in comparative literature. English, which she spoke with rare resourcefulness and wit, was her second language; she was also fluent in French and Italian, and her native German. Her collected introductions make up a superb secret book of literary, cultural, and political essays. In 2019, she helped edit a translation of letters written between her grandparents, Helmuth James von Moltke and Freya von Moltke, when Helmuth was awaiting trial in 1944 and 1945 for his role in the resistance to the Nazi regime. (He was a leader of the dissident Kreisau Circle, which foresaw the regime’s end and planned for the restoration of democratic government.) The letters, courageous and loving, are good reading for our time. They are also wise about grief: before his execution, Helmuth counsels Freya to “reap the fruits of your tears,” and not to “constrict that little place inside you where I want to go on dwelling.” Dorothea dwells with us as an example of a life committed to community and to family (especially to her beloved husband Cliff and daughters Nora and Thalia), and to books, ideas, and the better lives we can live in their light.