{"title":"Mac Griswold","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"pleasures-of-the-garden-book-mac-griswold-9780810909977","title":"Pleasures of the Garden","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49541774573841,"sku":"GOR003489611","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50116964319505,"sku":"CIN0810909979G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50646356328721,"sku":"CIN0810909979A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53586209571089,"sku":"CIN0810909979VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0810909979.jpg?v=1750849181"},{"product_id":"manor-book-mac-griswold-9780374266295","title":"The Manor","description":"\u003cp\u003eMac Griswold's\u0026gt;\u003ci\u003eThe Manor\u0026gt;\u003c\/i\u003eis the biography of a uniquely American place that has endured through wars great and small, through fortunes won and lost, through histories bright and sinister--and of the family that has lived there since its founding as a Colonial New England slave plantation three and a half centuries ago.\u003cbr\u003e In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon a stately yellow house and a garden guarded by looming boxwoods. She instantly knew that boxwoods that large--twelve feet tall, fifteen feet wide--had to be hundreds of years old. So, as it happened, was the house: Sylvester Manor had been held in the same family for eleven generations.\u003cbr\u003e Formerly encompassing all of Shelter Island, New York, a pearl of 8,000 acres caught between the North and South Forks of Long Island, the manor had dwindled to 243 acres. Still, its hidden vault proved to be full of revelations and treasures, including the 1666 charter for the land, and correspondence from Thomas Jefferson. Most notable was the short and steep flight of steps the family had called the slave staircase, which would provide clues to the extensive but little-known story of Northern slavery. Alongside a team of archaeologists, Griswold began a dig that would uncover a landscape bursting with stories.\u003cbr\u003e Based on years of archival and field research, as well as voyages to Africa, the West Indies, and Europe, \u003ci\u003eThe Manor\u003c\/i\u003e is at once an investigation into forgotten lives and a sweeping drama that captures our history in all its richness and suffering. It is a monumental achievement.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49764655530257,"sku":"CIN0374266298G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49905831248145,"sku":"CIN0374266298VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53697114997009,"sku":"CIN0374266298A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0374266298.jpg?v=1751260144"},{"product_id":"i-ll-build-a-stairway-to-paradise-book-mac-griswold-9780374279882","title":"I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise","description":"The story of Bunny Mellon, the great landscape architect and interior designer, becomes a revelatory exploration of extreme wealth in the American century.Bunny Mellon, whose life was marked by astonishing good fortune as well as tragedy and scandal, remains a singular figure in the annals of American design. The wife of Paul Mellon, one of the wealthiest men of his era, she traveled in the most rarefied circles. A close friend of the Kennedy family, she made the White House Rose Garden into the internationally famous backdrop it is today, and was later called upon to landscape the John F. Kennedy gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. Her Virginia estate, Oak Spring Farm, remains one of the triumphs of American horticulture and the fullest flowering of Mellon's creative vision - boasting acre after acre of gardens bearing her distinctive imprint, as well as thousands of books testifying to her lifelong passion for plants. As an interior designer, she spread her breathtaking elegance across eight different homes, staffed by as many as 350 employees. A daring and visionary art collector, she donated hundreds of impressionist paintings to the National Gallery of Art while also championing the likes of Mark Rothko, from whose studio she snapped up numerous works before he was known. She also championed John Edwards in his bid for vice president, but that is a story tainted with scandal.Behind Mellon's larger-than-life - but unfailingly reserved - persona, however, was the individual known only to her closest companions, among them Jackie Kennedy, Hubert de Givenchy, and Cristobal Balenciaga. She was a woman defined not only by an aura of loneliness and imperiousness but also by the startling speed with which she could enter into friendships or drop them. I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise is the most detailed treatment yet of Mellon's extraordinary life and legacy, and establishes her as a critical link between the traditions of the past and the evolution of American sensibilities during the latter half of the twentieth century. With this book, Mac Griswold - a close friend of Mellon's for many years - sheds new light on a figure as mesmerizing as the gardens and homes on which she left her mark.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49773169901841,"sku":"CIN0374279888VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50039924031761,"sku":"CIN0374279888G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50122507845905,"sku":"GOR013174990","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51692976275729,"sku":"NIN9780374279882","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53236906426641,"sku":"CIN0374279888A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0374279888.jpg?v=1751357990"},{"product_id":"manor-book-mac-griswold-9781250050205","title":"The Manor","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 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.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 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, \u003ci\u003eThe Manor\u003c\/i\u003e captures American history in all its richness and contradictions.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51312671031569,"sku":"CIN1250050200A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51312671719697,"sku":"CIN1250050200G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51312672243985,"sku":"NIN9781250050205","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51312672866577,"sku":"GOR008105196","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1250050200.jpg?v=1751421181"},{"product_id":"i-ll-build-a-stairway-to-paradise-book-mac-griswold-9781250872623","title":"I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eI'll Build a Stairway to Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e is like an exquisite string of pearls: the perfect balance of elegance, style, design, and beauty. This book is inspiring, spirited, and totally absorbing.\" --Diane von Furstenberg\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The story of Bunny Mellon, the great landscape and interior designer, becomes a revelatory exploration of extreme wealth in the American century.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Bunny Mellon, whose life was marked by astonishing good fortune as well as tragedy and scandal, remains a singular figure in the annals of American design. She had her finger on the pulse of American culture and possessed a rare, once-in-a-generation sense of style and grace. Her most celebrated work--the White House Rose Garden, designed during the presidency of John F. Kennedy--demonstrated how formal restraint and the sparing use of color could be deployed to maximal effect. Later, her understated landscape design for the Kennedy grave site at Arlington National Cemetery changed the face of American public memorials.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Mellon was a famously private person, and many of her greatest achievements remained concealed from public view. Her rarely seen gardens and domestic interiors at eight different properties on three continents became legends and models. At Oak Spring Farm in Virginia, the bibliographic riches of her Garden Library were twinned with the expansive flowering gardens lying below the Edward Larrabee Barnes-designed building. At her home on Nantucket, she pruned back the landscape to reveal the elemental forms of nature. Mellon also ranked as one of the great art collectors of her era, encouraging her husband Paul to use his family's vast wealth to acquire hundreds of nineteenth-century French paintings, many of which were donated to the National Gallery of Art. Her own tastes ranged from Mark Rothko to Richard Diebenkorn--in quantity.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eI'll Build a Stairway to Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e, Mac Griswold--who knew Mellon personally--delves into her subject's closely guarded personal archives to construct an unrivaled portrait of a woman as complex and multifaceted as the gardens and homes on which she left her mark. Mellon tested the anodyne 1950s model of woman-as-wife-as-mother by getting a divorce, admitting candidly to her first husband that she wanted a richer one. She imperiously traded old friends for new and ultimately used her reputation, her connections, and above all her money to help fund John Edwards's short-lived presidential campaign. She led an American version of a royal court that, over the years, included Jackie Kennedy, Hubert de Givenchy, and I. M. Pei.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e How Mellon's character, style, and taste developed together to produce her greatest accomplishments--private and public--is the real subject of this biography.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51323091452177,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51323094171921,"sku":"CIN1250872626G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51893598257425,"sku":"CIN1250872626VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53217137393937,"sku":"NIN9781250872623","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1250872626.jpg?v=1751303191"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-mac-griswold.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}