Edward Cline


Edward Cline is an American novelist, essayist and an air force veteran. He is best known for his Sparrowhawk series of novels, which are set in England and Virginia before the American Revolutionary War. His other fiction includes a suspense series, a contemporary detective series, and a period detective series.
Outside of his work as a novelist, Cline is known for his writings on aesthetics, his defenses of capitalism and of free speech, and his criticisms of contemporary political trends and of Islam. Cline has 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 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. He has written the Rule of Reason blog for the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism since 2003. His columns have also appeared on Capitalism Magazine, Family Security Matters, and other blog sites. As a writer, his strongest influence has been novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand.
In May 2016, Cline was informed by the FBI that his name was on a list of over 8,000 names that was characterized as an ISIS kill list. Cline's landlord promptly evicted him. In an interview with Vocativ Cline said, "The situation is unprecedented in my lifetime experience. I've never before been evicted or thrown under the bus for what I think and write." Daniel Greenfield, author of the Sultan Knish blog and contributor to FrontPage Magazine, published a defense of Cline in June 2016 regarding his eviction.