James Strange French (1807-1886) was a lawyer, novelist, and later a hotel keeper. He was educated at William and Mary and the University of Virginia, then read law with his uncle Robert French in Fayetteville, North Carolina. In 1831, French represented Nat Turner, as well as a number of other slaves accused of participating in Nat Turner’s slave rebellion. He was the author of at least one other novel, Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett of West Tennessee (1833).