Overview

Captive of the Labyrinth is reissued here to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of rifle heiress Sarah L. Winchester in 1922. After inheriting a vast fortune upon the death of her husband in 1881, Winchester purchased a simple farmhouse in San JosÉ, California. She built additions to the house and continued construction for the next twenty years. When neighbors and the local press could not imagine her motivations, they invented fanciful ones of their own. She was accused of being a ghost-obsessed spiritualist, and to this day it is largely believed that the extensive construction she executed on her San JosÉ house was done to thwart death and appease the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle. Author and historian Mary Jo Ignoffo’s definitive biography unearths the truth about this reclusive eccentric, revealing that she was not a maddened spiritualist driven by remorse but an intelligent, articulate woman who sought to protect her private life amidst the chaos of her public existence and the social mores of the time. The author takes readers through Winchester’s several homes, explores her private life, and, by excerpting from personal correspondence, one learns the widow’s true priority was not dissipating her fortune on the mansion in San JosÉ but endowing a hospital to eradicate a dread disease. Sarah Winchester has been exploited for profit for over a century, but Captive of the Labyrinth finally puts to rest the myths about this American heiress, and, in the process, uncovers her true legacies.

Full Product Details

9780826222701

Table of Contents

Reviews

Meticulously researched and compellingly told, Captive of the Labyrinth debunks the unjustly enduring legend of rifle heiress Sarah Winchester as a madwoman haunted by spirits of those killed with Winchester guns. In a tour de force of narrative history, author Mary Jo Ignoffo reveals the richness of her shy but sane subject's life, putting it vividly into the context of her Gilded Age era with stunning detail. In Ignoffo's talented hands, Sarah Winchester emerges as someone worthy of a biography even had she not married into the Winchester family and inherited a fortune based on guns. Ignoffo delivers this life story splendidly. -John Bainbridge, Jr., author of Gun Barons: The Weapons That Transformed America and the Men Who Invented Them Like the gleaming metal on a rifle's trigger, Ignoffo's argument shines as she demystifies one of the most prominent aspects of the Winchester mythology-the one revolving around the Winchester repeater, guilt, and the macabre. - Southern California Quarterly Captive of the Labyrinth is an impressive achievement. Ignoffo mined an extensive array of bibliographic and other source material to construct the portrait of a woman who was a product of her time and who strained against its boundaries. -Western Historical Quarterly Captive of the Labyrinth is an excellent read. Ignoffo finally sets the record straight on one of the most fascinating and misunderstood women in California history. A real page-turner! -Gary F. Kurutz, California State Library Director of Special Collections

Author Information

Mary Jo Ignoffo is an author and historian specializing in California and the West. She has written books and articles, curated historical museum exhibits, has been interviewed for documentary films and for podcasts airing in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. She is the author of Captive of the Labyrinth Sarah L. Winchester Heiress to the Rifle Fortune, La Verdad A Witness to the Salvadoran Martyrs and Gold Rush Politics. Ignoffo holds degrees from Santa Clara University and San Jose State University.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available