The Paper Chase

A terrific adventure story from the age of Queen Anne – with all the pace and brio of a novel

Paper Trails follows the apprenticeship, career and manhunt of David Edwards, a shady publisher who printed a seditious pamphlet (The Memorial of the Church of England, 1705) that threatened to topple the government and was part of a much larger revolutionary campaign.

The case was a cause celebre – the manuscript was delivered to the publisher by a mysterious “woman in a vizard mask”, and when Edwards was suddenly nowhere to be found, the book was burnt at the stake in his place…

Secretary of State Robert Harley personally oversaw the investigation to find the anonymous author, and when Edwards re-emerged, willing to tell Harley what he knew to save his skin, he also joined the detective trail… a trail which went cold, but which Joseph Hone picks up here with great aplomb. The drinking dens, printing houses and networks of intrigue in post-fire London are brilliantly captured, to tell a fascinating story, with a possible solution.