| Unwise Passions: A True Story of a Remarkable Woman---and the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth-Century America | 
 enlarge | Author: Alan Pell Crawford
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 349137
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0743264673
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780743264679
ASIN: 0743264673
Publication Date: February 8, 2005
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Amazon.com Review
Unwise Passions traces the trajectory of aristocrat Nancy Randolph's tempestuous life, beginning with her privileged birth in 1774, continuing through a series of scandals that eventually sent her North, and concluding with her death in 1837. But this engaging, accessible biography also serves as group portrait of the Virginia aristocracy--and of its declining fortunes, as the colonial oligarchy was supplanted by an unrulier democracy. When she was only 18, Nancy was accused of having borne a child to her own sister's husband, Richard Randolph, who then allegedly murdered the newborn. Defended by Revolutionary legend Patrick Henry, Richard and Nancy were acquitted, and she returned to live with him and her sister. But the rumors persisted, and Richard's sudden death in 1796 only made them uglier. Many of the ugliest rumors were voiced by Richard's younger brother, Jack; Nancy's former suitor. Jack improved the debt-riddled family estates while he pursued a political career as a fiery states-rights congressman (a career that gets nearly as much of the author's attention as Nancy's life). Virginia-based journalist Alan Pell Crawford doesn't conclude definitively whether or not Jack actually believed Nancy had murdered his brother and had sexual relations with a slave, but the congressman certainly hated her enough to throw her off the family farm and repeat those stories later to her husband. At age 34, reduced to poverty and living in New York, the long-suffering Nancy married Gouverneur Morris, another wealthy veteran of the Revolutionary generation. Their happy union produced one child and endured until his death. Crawford, also the author of Thunder on the Right, pens a lively narrative that vividly evokes his characters: kindhearted, rather frivolous Nancy; urbane, unshockable Morris; irascible, overwrought Jack; and a host of cousins who are scattered throughout America's inbred, gossipy high society. Good fun and good history, to boot. --Wendy Smith
Product Description
In the spring of 1793, eighteen-year-old Nancy Randolph, the fetching daughter of one of the greatest of the great Virginia tobacco planters, was accused, along with her brother-in-law, of killing her newborn son. Once one of the most sought-after young women in Virginia society, she was denounced as a ruined Jezebel, and the great orator Patrick Henry and future Supreme Court justice John Marshall were retained to defend her in a sensational trial. This gripping account of murder, infanticide, prostitution charges, moral decline, and heroism that played out in the intimate lives of the nation's Founding Fathers is as riveting and revealing as any current scandal -- in or out of Washington.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Unwise, indeed................... May 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
....though 215 years later we still have a reasonable doubt as to who was guilty of unwisdom [I know that's not really a word, but it works]. This fine book is available at the John Marshall House, in Richmond, as it should be, sheved with its direct competition, "Scandal at Bizarre", by Cynthia Kierner.
The basic facts are simple, though the implications are still in debate...on October 1, 1792, Richard Randolph, his wife Judith, and wife's sister Nancy, travelled to the home of their cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Harrison. Nancy had been gaining weight, and not feeling well. Further, it had been said that she and Richard had been showing more affection for each other than was proper. Anyway, during the night, Nancy screamed in pain, footsteps were heard on the steps, and, the next morning, the Harrison slaves started telling stories of a dead white baby in the woodpile, though no body was ever produced.....Richard was accused, first merely thru gossip, of having impregnated Nancy, and aborted the child....in April, 1793, Richard was put on trial for murder....somehow he managed to hire a "dream team" defense of John Marshall, Patrick Henry, and Alexander Campbell, and got off. But, his reputation, as well as Nancy's, was ruined....
Nancy stayed on at Bizarre, even after Richard died in 1796. Judith, and Richard's brother Jack, later known as "John Randolph of Roanoke" made her life hell. After she left Bizarre, no decent person, especially the other Randolphs, would associate with her...she moved to New York, and found redemption in the person of legendary financier and Federalist politician Gouverneur Morris. She bore Morris a son, was a fine wife and mother, and withstood every challenge from Morris' family, and the ever present, ever evil, John Randolph of Roanoke.
This is a great story, well told. [Could have used an index, though]. I've reviewed Dr. Crawford before ["Twilight at Monticello"], and he was five stars there, too. Super portrait of Jack--a drunken, dope addict, insane, brilliant, evil, eloquent, master user of people. Dr. Crawford does not find Jefferson guilty by association---thank you. Two small holes could easily have been filled in...Nancy and Judith's stepmother married Dr. John Brockenbrough...we are not told that he built a mansion on Clay street that in time was known as the "Gray House", but is now and forever some of the most sacred ground on earth..."The White House of the Confederacy". We are told that Mollie and David Meade built a house and combined their names to call it "Moldavia"---we might have liked to know that John Allan raised his stepson there---Edgar Allan Poe. All in all, an excellent book...superb glimpse of Virginia history, and social conditions. Along with Dr. Kierner's telling of the same tale, highly recommended.
 Pretty good August 27, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read a lot of biography and historical fiction and I was intrigued by the reviews of this book so I bought it. The print is large, there are many reproductions of paintings, and it's a rather quick read, but it's "pretty good" as far as historical biography goes. It was interesting to read a thumbnail sketch of the rise and fall of the Virginia tobacco farmers, and it was also a fun task to try and keep track of all of the Randalph's as they inter-married! The main problem that keeps the book from being truly wonderful is that the scandal and the main characters aren't very compelling to begin with and the author doesn't do much to infuse the story with any urgency. There a few points where I found myself wondering what would happen next, but for the most part I was simply mildly entertained and when I was finished I felt I'd read a decent book that further illuminated a period in American history for a me and also educated me about Nancy Randolph and her kinsmen.
 Less engaging than a history textbook...from high school. January 14, 2006
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
I enjoy historical fiction and historical fact, but I found this book to be quite dull. The writing was not engaging, as the style seemed antiquated to me. I think I was expecting more of a modern interpretation of the story. Instead, this book reads like a Victorian gossip column. In short, neither the story nor the "scandal" was intriguing to me, not even as simple history. Apparently enjoyable by some, but it just wasn't what I expected.
Great Biography...Not So Much Scandal January 2, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The title is a little misleading, but this is still a great biography of Anne Cary Morris. The "scandal" is dealt with in several chapters and the remaining story tells of the disfunctional family of which she was a part of. It left me looking for more information about the remaining "cast of characters."
 Historical Reality Check of early Americans November 15, 2005
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I got the book at my local library and just completed it. Mr. Crawford is good writer. I like that the chapters are short and the story line keeps moving.
I see that he has a new book coming out on Jefferson's last years. The research from this book probably helped on the new one since the Randolph and Jefferson familes were related (cousins married cousins) and Jefferson's son-in-laws were also politicians. I really appreciated the family tree even though the larger family lines aren't complete.
The main story line was not really resolved for me unless we are to believe Nancy's response to Jack in their later years. Did Nancy deliberately abort with her cousin's "medicine" or did she really miscarry? Was Nancy really pregnant by Theodorick who died before she delivered and not his brother Richard? How could Nancy go about in society as she "increased" without any censorship and why didn't any of her relatives, especially her sister who lived in the same house, know about the pregnancy?
Some characters appear for only a few paragraphs yet interest me to find out more about them in other biographies or histories. I was surprised to see that President Adams was not liked and Jefferson was extremely political. Crawford shows the political parties switched platforms over time so current parties cannot claim ownership of ideas. I will be interested in reading more books about the early founders, politicians and other Americans. This taste of early years in congress was very interesting.
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