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 God’s 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

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.