The Hemingses of Monticello: Summary and book reviews of The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed, plus links to an excerpt from The Hemingses of Monticello and a biography of Annette Gordon-Reed.

National Book Awards, 2008 National Book Awards, 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Letters, Drama and Music, 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Letters, Drama and Music, 2009 This epic work tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family's dispersal after Jefferson's death in 1826. It brings to life not only Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson but also their children and Hemings's siblings, who shared a father with Jefferson's wife, Martha. The Hemingses of Monticello sets the family's compelling saga against the backdrop of Revolutionary America, Paris on the eve of its own revolution, 1790s Philadelphia, and plantation life at Monticello. Much anticipated, this book promises to be the most important history of an American slave family ever written.

Media Reviews

The New York Times - Eric Foner I am glad to hear that Gordon-Reed is at work on a second volume tracing the further history of this remarkable family.   San Diego Union-Tribune - Peter Rowe Early chapters slog through colonial Virginia, and the narrative halts often for musings about law and love, sexual attraction and family dynamics, freedom and slavery ... The tale gains speed whenever Thomas Jefferson and Sarah “Sally” Hemings appear, but this remains a serious history.   The San Francisco Chronicle - Sanford D. Horwitt Much of Gordon-Reed's superbly told story takes place at Jefferson's beloved Monticello, where, she writes, "we can find the absolute best, and the absolute worst, that we have been as Americans. ... Gordon-Reed has given us an important story that is ultimately about the timeless quest for justice and human dignity.   The Washington Post - Fergus M. Bordewich In this magisterial book, she has succeeded not only in recovering the lives of an entire enslaved family, but also in showing them as creative agents intelligently maneuvering to achieve maximum advantage for themselves within the orbit of institutionalized slavery.   The Washington Post - Fergus M. Bordewich In this magisterial book, she has succeeded not only in recovering the lives of an entire enslaved family, but also in showing them as creative agents intelligently maneuvering to achieve maximum advantage for themselves within the orbit of institutionalized slavery.   Kirkus Reviews Ponderous but sagacious and ultimately rewarding.   Publishers Weekly Starred Review. This is a scholar's book: serious, thick, complex ....Reed's genius for reading nearly silent records makes this an extraordinary work.   Library Journal Starred Review. This is a masterpiece brimming with decades of dedicated research and dexterous writing. It is essential for any collection on U.S. history, Colonial America, Virginia, slavery, or miscegenation. Edmund S. Morgan, author of American Slavery. Annette Gordon-Reed has broken a path into territory that has hitherto eluded historians: what happens to intimate human relations, those between lover and loved, parent and child, brother and sister, when one among them is enslaved to another. In a richly detailed narrative of events, public and private, she reconstructs the feelings of the participants: Thomas Jefferson, his slave mistress, and her blood relatives. The result is not simply a fascinating story in itself, but a new perspective on how the humanity of slaves and a slave owner could adjust and survive in circumstances designed to obliterate it. We have had other studies of master-slave relationships, but none that has penetrated to the depth of this one. Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Sphinx. Thomas Jefferson often described his slaves at Monticello as 'my family.' Annette Gordon-Reed has taken that description seriously. Surely more seriously than Jefferson ever intended! The result, the story of the Hemings family, is the most comprehensive account of one slave family ever written. It is not a pretty story, but it is poignant beyond belief. And it demonstrates conclusively that we must put aside Gone With the Wind forever and begin to study Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom."

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