Act of Oblivion was published by Hutchinson Heinemann in 2022. After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Parliament passed the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, pardoning most of those who had supported Cromwell’s Commonwealth — but specifically excluding the regicides, the men who had signed Charles I’s death warrant. Edward Whalley and his son-in-law William Goffe, two of the fifty-nine signatories, fled to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The novel follows their decades-long flight through New England — from Boston to New Haven to a cave in the Connecticut wilderness — while being hunted by Richard Nayler, a fictional royalist agent.
Harris found in this historical episode a quintessential fugitive narrative: two aging Puritans, once among the most powerful men in England, reduced to hiding in basements and barns in the wilderness of a new continent.
The American Puritan World
Harris’s depiction of colonial New England — the Puritan communities, the wilderness, the tension between religious idealism and frontier pragmatism — is drawn from primary sources. The novel offers a convincing portrait of a society in which harbouring a regicide was simultaneously an act of political defiance and a matter of religious conscience.
Collecting Act of Oblivion
First edition (Hutchinson Heinemann, London, 2022): Boards with dust jacket.
Approximate market values:
- UK first edition, fine in jacket: $15–$30
- US first edition (Harper): $10–$20
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the Act of Oblivion? The Act of Indemnity and Oblivion (1660) was passed by the English Parliament at the Restoration of Charles II. It pardoned most who had fought against the Crown during the Civil War — but specifically excluded the regicides who had signed Charles I’s death warrant. Those men were hunted across Europe and America.