The Paper Chase: The Printer, the Spymaster, and the Hunt for the Rebel Pamphleteers

(Paperback)

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A terrific adventure story from the age of Queen Anne - with all the pace and brio of a novel An adventure story of politics, philosophy and printing from the age of Queen Anne In the summer of 1705, a masked woman knocked on the door of David Edwards's London workshop. She did not leave her name, only a package and a coded means of identifying her courier. Edwards was a Welsh printer working in the dark confines of Nevill's Alley, outside the city walls. The package was an illegal, anonymous pamphlet- The Memorial of the Church of England. The argument it proposed threatened to topple the government, but sedition sold well in the coffeehouses of Fleet Street and the woman promised protection. Edwards swiftly set about printing and surreptitiously distributing the pamphlet. Parliament was soon in turmoil and government minister Robert Harley launched a hunt for all those involved. When Edwards was nowhere to be found, his wife was imprisoned and the pamphlet was burnt in his place. The printer was not the only villain, though, and Harley had to find the unknown writers who wished to bring the government down. Full of original research, The Paper Chase tears through the backstreets of London and its corridors of power as Edwards's allegiances waver and Harley's grasp on parliament threatens to slip. Amateur detectives and government spies race to unmask the secrets of the age in this complex break-neck political adventure. Joseph Hone shows us a nation in crisis through the fascinating story of a single incendiary document.

Reviews

A remarkable achievement...a fast-paced, captivating narrative... Hone demonstrates how uncovering 18th-century working lives can be every bit as enthralling as tracing the machinations of the greatest politicians of the age -- Marcus Nevitt * Spectator *
An exciting story told with vigour... A fascinating insight into the world of late Stuart printing... [Hone] manages to combine a lively, almost novelistic narrative style with a confident and scholarly knowledge of his subject -- Adrian Tinniswood * Literary Review *
An elegant blend of scholarship and detection that reanimates the dangerous, exciting, clandestine world of Fleet Street at the start of the modern age -- Peter Moore, author of Endeavour
A brilliantly original, immersive and thrilling tale told by a fine scholar and storyteller * Jessie Childs, author of Gods Traitors *
Enthralling microhistory...provides in Hone's skilled hands the clearest view to date of the murky world of underground printing in late Stuart London -- Tom Keymer * London Review of Books *

Author Bio

Dr Joseph Hone is a writer and academic based at Newcastle University, where he researches and teaches the literature of the long eighteenth century. He was educated at Oxford and has held fellowships at Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, and the Institute of English Studies in London. His first book, Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne (2017) was shortlisted for the University English Book Prize. He is currently preparing the early verse of Alexander Pope for a major new edition.