 First edition | |
| Author | David Liss |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical, mystery |
| Published | 2000 (Random House) |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 448 pp |
| ISBN | 0-375-50292-0 |
| OCLC | 41118354 |
| 813/.6 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3562.I7814 C66 2000 |
A Conspiracy of Paper is a historical-mystery novel by David Liss, set in London in the period leading up to the bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720.
The novel's story is told in the form of a first-person memoir penned by Benjamin Weaver (born Lienzo), London-born son of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish parents. After a successful career in bare-knuckle boxing, Weaver has found a new calling as a 'thief-taker'—roughly equivalent to a modern private investigator. Believing that his estranged father died in a tragic accident, Weaver is shocked when a prospective client claims that the 'accident' was, in fact, murder. Weaver's subsequent investigation involves him in the new London financial world of banks, stocks, speculation, violence and scandal leading up to the world's first stock-market crash, the South Sea Bubble. In order to solve the mystery, he must learn the inner workings of this new world of paper money. The murder investigation moves toward its conclusion in lock-step with the accelerating frenzy of the Bubble's final days.
A sub-plot involves Benjamin's gradual reintegration, after years of estrangement, into his family's community and traditions. This gives the author the opportunity to introduce the Lienzo family, and their struggles to survive and prosper as Jews and foreigners in 18th century London. Benjamin finds added incentive to rejoin his family when he meets the beautiful Miriam, widow of his cousin and now living in his uncle Miguel's household.
Eventually, Weaver goes back to live in the Jewish area of Dukes Place, regularly attends Sabbath prayers at the Synagogue and strictly refrains from consuming pork. As referenced in David Liss' extensive personal note at the end of the book, this parallels the author's own personal development - raised as a completely secular Jew in the present-day US and deciding as an adult to keep some of the observances of Judaism.
Though the Lienzo family and other main characters are fictional, the story is well-researched, and includes historical events surrounding the South Sea Bubble. [1] The early days of the London Stock Exchange in the coffee houses of Exchange Alley are colorfully depicted, and Weaver has to deal with historical characters such as Jonathan Wild, the notorious 'Thief-taker General'. In the 'Historical Note' following the novel, regarding the Benjamin Weaver character, Liss states that "I found inspiration for his character in the story of Daniel Mendoza", [1] a real-life boxing champion.
The title alludes to the South Sea Company's fraudulent schemes to inflate and maintain the value of its stock. [1]
The South Sea Company was a British joint-stock company founded in January 1711, created as a public-private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of the national debt. To generate income, in 1713 the company was granted a monopoly to supply African slaves to the islands in the "South Seas" and South America. When the company was created, Britain was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and Spain and Portugal controlled most of South America. There was thus no realistic prospect that trade would take place, and as it turned out, the Company never realised any significant profit from its monopoly. However, Company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations dealing in government debt, and peaked in 1720 before suddenly collapsing to little above its original flotation price. The notorious economic bubble thus created, which ruined thousands of investors, became known as the South Sea Bubble.
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The Mississippi Company was a corporation holding a business monopoly in French colonies in North America and the West Indies. In 1717, the Mississippi Company received a royal grant with exclusive trading rights for 25 years. The rise and fall of the company is connected with the activities of the Scottish financier and economist John Law who was then the Controller General of Finances of France. Though the company itself started to become profitable and remained solvent until the collapse of the bubble, when speculation in French financial circles and land development in the region became frenzied and detached from economic reality, the Mississippi bubble became one of the earliest examples of an economic bubble.
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