Voth's annotations to the manuscript begin as scholarly comments on its likely authenticity but soon become more personal, comically documenting his recent break-up and his difficulties at work.

The novel offers satirical commentary on historical and contemporary political issues, including over-policing and surveillance, racism, the dredging of the Fens, and managerialism in 21st-century universities.

[8] His work with a carpenter gave him the skills to be able to break out of jail four separate times, making him the most wanted criminal in London.

[9] Rosenberg's fictional Jack Sheppard is based on the historical folk hero who lived in London in the 18th century, but it is important to note that this is not a true account.

It is clear he has many qualms with the university that he works at, and also discusses his personal life, specifically his struggles of dating as a queer man.

Furthermore, Rosenberg claims in an interview that this combined with the numerous terms to discuss genitalia all were to somewhat mock the cis-het conventions around the rigid relationship between desire and certain body parts.

In the beginning of the book, the carpenter he apprentices calls him “girl”, but when Bess refers to him as a “handsome boy”, he is relieved to realize that he can identify himself however he wishes.

One of the reasons Dr. Voth is so infatuated with the manuscript is because he reveals he has been put on unpaid leave by the Dean of Surveillance for "improperly utilized leisure"—playing phone Scrabble during office hours.

There are many references throughout the book at his disappointment in the way he is treated as a professor at a university, and appreciates the opportunity to be able to immerse himself in the manuscript, which is something he was extremely interested in.

The university claims Voth is legally obligated to turn the manuscript over, which furthers his resentment to the institution and capitalism in general.

[19] He explains that from his time working in academia, he has come to the belief that university's goal is to make its staff feel so insignificant, they will stop struggling for a space there.

Rosenberg says that a lot of times, "there are things about the university that grinds people down so badly that they should certainly not feel compelled to continue to struggle there".

Despite the novel's historical setting, it is impressive that Rosenberg is able to capture the human struggle through an accessible narrative, helping the audience resonate with the characters.

It is also worth noting that the animal of a fox is stereotypically sneaky and mysterious, possibly hinting at a double meaning for Jack as a thief and jail-breaker.

When asked Rosenberg's reasoning for reimagining Sheppard as a trans man living in 18th century London, he explains he wanted to combat the "cookie-cutter trans narratives"[22] in mainstream culture in which transness is kept separate from other social forces; he hoped to connect things that mainstream media would like to keep in separate boxes.

Rosenberg admits that his refusal to describe Jack's genitalia partly came from a "fear about mainstream readers' speculating gaze".

These cases were reported the most in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whereby in the female husband was regularly made out to have lied to their wives, being accused of defrauding her.

Alan L Hart was a key transgender figure in the twentieth century, with a variety of knowledge surrounding physics and radiology.

It is important to understand that up until the twenty-first century, transitioning has been perceived in numerous different ways, with a multitude of terms referring to the process of self discovery within gender.