The Book Prize Index

A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century

Witold Rybczynski

A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and North America in the Nineteenth Century is a biography of 19th-century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, published in 1999, by Canadian architect, professor and writer Witold Rybczynski. Andrew Delbanco reviewed it for The New York Review of Books. Suzannah Lessard reviewed it for The New York Times. It was short-listed for the Charles Taylor Prize in 2000.

BiographyBiography · medium confidenceBiography81 signalsLlm Classifier: Biography -> BiographyKeyword Classifier: Biography -> BiographyKeyword Classifier: Travel & Place -> Travel & PlaceCrime, Policing & ViolenceHousing, Cities & Urban LifeLiterature & WritersHuman Rights & International Law

Award History

1 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize2000WinnerSecondary source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Frederick Law Olmsted90%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    35 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 72%.