Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York

Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York is the first novel from acclaimed English non-fiction author Francis Spufford. Published in 2016, the work draws on the 18th century picaresque genre made popular by writers like Sarah Fielding, Henry Fielding, and Laurence Sterne. Spufford mimics many of the techniques first used in these early novels: antiquated spelling and random noun capitalization, long and loopy sentences that sometimes span an entire page, and most notably a third person narrator who frequently interrupts the novel for chats with the reader. The novel tells the story of a cosmopolitan traveler who visits a mid-18th-century New York for a mysterious purpose, and then gets embroiled in a variety of adventures that reveal the hypocrisies and facades of the people around him. The novel has received overwhelming praise, and won several awards, including the prestigious Ondaatje Prize.

On a dark November evening in 1746, an Englishman named Mr. Richard Smith disembarks in New York City and immediately goes to a counting house on Golden Hill Street run by the successful merchant Mr. Lovell. Smith presents Lovell with a bill for £1000, apparently issued by London investors to whom Lovell indeed owes this amount. But Lovell doesn’t have this kind of cash on hand, nor does he fully believe Smith – what if this bill is a forgery?

To hedge his bets, Lovell gives Smith a mix of colonial bank notes, since in early New York there is no universal money, and its substitutes include everything from rum and tobacco coupons to slaves. As he sees enslaved people being led down the street, Smith’s initial idea is that the colonies are clean and pure, free from the convoluted grime of London, but this idealized vision of “liberty and virtue, virtue and liberty” as the hallmarks of Manhattan evaporates when he sees that the enslaved people being led around the streets are in shackles.



Smith is now stuck waiting for confirmation that the bill is genuine, so he decides to make the best of his enforced tourism. At Lovell’s house, he meets his daughters Tabitha and Flora, and immediately hits it off with the witty and well-read Tabitha. As they banter, Smith and Tabitha compare themselves to Benedick and Beatrice, the main characters of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

He visits a variety of coffee shops, where he learns that the city is divided between those loyal to Governor George Clinton and those behind Chief Justice James De Lancey. Smith’s refusal to explain who exactly he is and what his purpose is in the city spurs gossip. There are rumors that he is a con man, or “a Saracen conjuror, and quite possibly an agent of the French.” In any case, both Clinton and De Lancey try to make an ally out of him.

On the Guy Fawkes Day bonfire celebration, Smith is horrified when the mob burns effigies of the Pope and Bonnie Prince Charlie as well as that of Fawkes. The crowd then turns on Smith himself, assuming that his shock means that he is a Catholic, and nearly killing him. Smith is rescued by Septimus Oakeshott, Governor Clinton’s secretary and spymaster, and Achilles, Oakeshott’s lover who is also one of Clinton’s slaves.



Oakeshott and Smith become fast friends, and decide to mount a production of Joseph Addison’s tragedy, Cato. This play, which tells the story of a Roman senator’s doomed attempts to resist Julius Caesar’s tyranny, was in real life a favorite of George Washington. Initially, Smith is excited to cast Tabitha in one of the main roles, but at a dinner he meets the seductive 46-year-old retired actress Euterpe “Terpie” Tomlinson. He is impressed by the performance she gives at the party, and by her other skills – “Every time she misremembers a line, she’ll give a flash of thigh” – and convinces Oakeshott that Terpie should have Tabitha’s role instead.

Tabitha is rightfully incensed. Then, Smith’s fate goes from bad to worse. The ship that was supposed to bring confirmation of the £1000 bill arrives without any such proof, so Smith is thrown in jail for debt and for crime of forgery, which carries a death sentence. While he is in jail, Smith writes a letter to his father, a London clergyman, which reveals to us that Smith is a mixed-race man affiliated with the household of an unnamed Lord. Luckily, the next ship from London indeed carries proof that the bill isn’t a forgery, and Smith is released.

After the play opens to great acclaim, Terpie seduces Smith, who gives in because he despairs of ever patching things up with Tabitha. As they are having sex, however, they are discovered by Flora, who was bringing a letter of reconciliation from Tabitha. But the discovery of the affair isn’t just personally disastrous for Smith – Terpie’s husband is a strong supporter of Governor Clinton, so by cuckolding him, Smith seems to be declaring himself on Justice De Lancey’s side.



Feeling betrayed by his friend’s seeming political alliances, Oakeshott challenges Smith to a duel. Neither wants to kill the other, but in an accident, Smith ends up fatally injuring Oakeshott.

Since duels are illegal, Smith is brought up on charges of murder. Presiding over the trial is Chief Justice De Lancey himself. Smith is persuaded to tarnish the late Oakeshott’s name, outing him as a homosexual in court and pretending that the duel was a way to defend himself from Oakeshott’s advances. This defense works, and Smith is only found guilty of manslaughter, but his guilt almost kills him.

Before he can be taken away to prison, Smith escapes New York on a sledge, bringing with him Achilles and as many enslaved men and women as he could buy with his £1000.



The novel here ends, and is followed by two letters. The first is the letter that arrived by ship to explain Smith’s purpose to Lovell, which says that he has been sent by an abolitionist chapel in London to secure the freedom of enslaved people. The second letter explains that the novel we’ve just read was written by Tabitha many years later as a way of processing what happened while Smith was in New York.