Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island
Mac Griswold
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon Sylvester Manor, a stately mansion guarded by hulking boxwoods. When Griswold went inside, she encountered a house full of revelations, including a letter from Thomas Jefferson and--most remarkable and disturbing--what the aged owner, Andrew Fiske, casually called the "slave staircase."
This staircase would reveal the extensive but little-known story of Northern slavery, and in 1997 Griswold returned with a team of archaeologists, uncovering a landscape filled with stories. Based on years of research--and voyages that took her as far as West Africa--Griswold has given us both the biography of a place that has witnessed war and reversals in fortune, and the riveting story of the family that has occupied it for three centuries. A fine-grained account and a sweeping drama, The Manor captures American history in all its richness and contradictions.Product Details
Price
$30.00
$27.90
Publisher
St. Martins Press-3PL
Publish Date
April 01, 2014
Pages
480
Dimensions
5.9 X 8.9 X 1.2 inches | 1.45 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781250050205
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Mac Griswold is a cultural landscape historian and the author of Washington's Gardens at Mount Vernon and The Golden Age of American Gardens. She has won a Guggenheim Fellowship and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Travel + Leisure. She lives in Sag Harbor, New York.
Reviews
"Griswold's deft unpacking of the Sylvester Manor mystery reveals the uncomfortable, complicated history they left behind....[A] precise, beautiful book...Haunting." --The Boston Globe
"Extraordinary...This is an important book, for it is not just about a house. It is about the world and the destruction we have caused in it, all for the sake of making that place called home." --Jamaica Kincaid "History buffs will love The Manor, and it tells a story that needs to be told....[The house is] a remarkable relic of American history." --The Washington Post "Griswold skillfully weaves a historical tapestry of considerable complexity." --Women's Wear Daily "A lively history of early American settlement...Like that Pulitzer Prize-winning work [The Hemingses of Monticello], The Manor is American history tightly compressed." --The Atlantic Wire
