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.Author: Mac Griswold
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: 04/01/2014
Pages: 480
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 1.20d
ISBN13: 9781250050205
ISBN10: 1250050200
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | State & Local | Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD,
- History | United States | Colonial Period (1600-1775)
- Social Science | Slavery
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.
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