A Madman’s Will: John Randolph, 400 Slaves, and the Mirage of Freedom.

Gregory May is a historian who writes about the early American republic is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After working as a Supreme Court law clerk, Greg practiced law in Washington, DC and New York for thirty years. He lives in Virginia.

His book tells the untold saga of John Randolph’s 383 slaves, freed in his much-contested will of 1821. Few legal cases in American history are as riveting as the controversy surrounding the will of Virginia Senator John Randolph (1773–1833), which—almost inexplicably—freed all 383 of his slaves in one of the largest and most publicized manumissions in American history.