Founding of English America

John May is an author and former business executive who resides in Pittsboro, North Carolina. His first work, a historical novel, was a finalist for the Thomas Wolfe Prize.

“With the scope of a Homeric epic, May’s narrative follows Europe’s seagoing nations as their mariners discover various dependable winds, as navigation and shipbuilding evolve, and as England tries to best its rivals by colonizing the eastern North American coast between 1580 and 1610. His focus narrows on the first two attempts: Roanoke Island, the one that disappeared, and Jamestown, the one that nearly starved to death before becoming the epicenter of Virginia’s booming tobacco economy—and its market in enslaved Africans. In this extensively researched work, May’s eye is also often on Powhatan, father of Pocahontas and great chief, as he dealt with Captain John Smith and his English cohort. Fascinating: full of great characters, surprises, and horrors, and gripping all the way!”—Bland Simpson, author of North Carolina, Land of Water, Land of Sky and Clover Garden