Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson's America

Scandal at Bizarre masterfully evokes the world of the Randolphs of Virginia, one of the South's most prominent colonial-era families. With a telling eye for detail, Cynthia Kierner unravels the details of a scandal that haunted this family for generations. In the early 1790s Richard Randolph was accused of fathering a child by his sister-in-law, Nancy, and murdering the baby shortly after its birth. Richard was acquitted of the crime in court but spent the rest of his life in the shadow of the scandal. The rest of the household suffered too, and only Nancy, who later married the prominent New York statesman Gouverneur Morris, would find any degree of happiness, while Richard's brother, the powerful politician John Randolph, did everything in his power to undermine her. A tale of family passion, betrayal, and deception, Scandal at Bizarre is a fascinating historical portrait of the social and political realities of a world long vanished.