Edward Cline

Edward Cline (born 1946 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American novelist and essayist.

He is best known for his Sparrowhawk series of novels, set in England and Virginia before the American Revolutionary War. This historical series is being used in college, high school and middle school literature courses around the U.S., and has a significant foreign following as well, particularly in the United Kingdom.

His other fiction includes one suspense series (featuring American entrepreneur Merritt Fury), one contemporary detective series (featuring Chess Hanrahan, who solves paradoxical murders), and one period detective series (featuring Cyrus Skeen in Nineteen Twenties San Francisco).

Outside of his work as a novelist, Cline is known for his writings on aesthetics, his defense of capitalism and of free speech, and his criticism of contemporary political trends, and of Islam (and religion in general). Cline written on freedom of speech and censorship issues for The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science and The Journal of Information Ethics. He has written numerous feature and cover stories, as well as book reviews, for Marine Corps League Magazine, The Colonial Williamsburg Journal, The Wall Street Journal, and The Intellectual Activist. His article on English political philosopher John Locke was carried in two editions of Western Civilization (McGraw-Hill). He has been a guest commentator for Rule of Reason at the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism since 2006. His numerous columns have also appeared on Capitalism Magazine, Family Security Matters, and other blog sites.