What If The Queen Should Die?

Click play. Watch this video

It sets the scene for everything else on this page…

Introducing… the hero

This dangerous looking fellow with a gun is Daniel Defoe.

As a young man, he took part in the Monmouth rebellion against the King James II – for which others were tortured and executed.

Bet you didn’t know THAT! Bet you thought he spent his life sitting on his backside writing books like Robinson Crusoe. Well, think again…

Defoe worked as a spy for James’s daughter, Queen Anne, wrote propaganda that sometimes backfired (getting him thrown in prison), and traded tobacco, beer, wine, silks, muslins, cochineal, wax, dates, tea and ostrich feathers.

But at the start of What If The Queen Should Die?, he’s lost everything, and he’s desperate…

Tell me about Queen Anne…?

Click on the picture to find out how

How to get your hands on this extraordinary book

This novel was published through the ingenious (and exhausting) mechanism of crowd-funding. It’s distributed by Penguin Random House.

If you are a person with great taste, you may go ahead and buy the Kindle Edition, here

Should interest anyone…

… interested in literature, says Professor John Mullan.

Victoria Lambert
I found the book intriguing, joyously difficult to put down. It kept calling me back from whatever I was doing, urging me to read on. The form feels anarchic yet sumptuous. A feast for readers who enjoy their books stylishly written and cleverly plotted.
Victoria Lambert
The descriptions of eighteenth century life will be with me for years. It had never occurred to me that losing a king or queen would be like losing a parent... Fantastic!
Kylie Rixon
Quirky, unique... a book that is really about the art of story-telling. It has left me bedazzled.
Una Lynch
Extraordinary and exciting.
Gyles Brandreth

Thank you