What is the source of the expression "like a paper devil"?
Solution 1:
The only instance of "like a paper devil" that a Google Books search turns up is from Rusell Hoban, Turtle Diary (1975). Here is the paragraph where the phrase appears:
Harry Rush's letter still lay on my desk unanswered, heavy with the burden that would be on me if I accepted. Of course I needed the £1,000, when would there ever be a time when I shouldn't? The letter nagged at me like a paper devil, I knew I'd never finish such a book if I were fool enough to start it, I'd sicken at the very first page. I had feelings of doom and damnation, utter lostness, and now the dead and dying oyster-catchers seemed to put the seal on it. Everything seemed too much for me, I was overwhelmed.
In this instance, there is no idiom or slang at work. The narrator is tormented by a letter offering him £1,000 to write a book; the letter is written on paper; therefore, in the narrator's eyes, it is like a paper devil tempting him to accept a project that he knows will consign him to perdition.
Three additional instances of "like a paper devil" show up in a general Google search, each in the context of a simile. From a correspondent contributing to "What a piece of Work..." on The Belize Forums (October 1, 2006):
Truth is sometimes thicker than ones own observations, [Mr.] Derilict parenthesis he is my friend and fellow for thirty years parenthesis was Flying like a paper Devil in a Sandstorm.
From a correspondent in Lake Michigan, Wisconsin, posting to the "Quotes and Sayings" forum on the ConnectingSingles website (August 2, 2016):
someone fleeing a terrifying situation
'Runnin' like a paper devil.'
From a forum submission about a classic-model Chevrolet on "Do you like this?" on the TriFive.com site (May 6, 2017):
Used to ride with my uncle in his 58. Had a 348 with three on the tree. He would tell me to hang on, cause it goes like a paper devil... Never did find out what a "paper devil" was.:)
Whereas Hoban's paper devil is, in effect, a stationary (and stationery) devil composed of paper that does little more than beckon to the narrator from its resting place on his desk, the three paper devils in the forum and blog posts appear in the context of similes indicating extreme speed. Devils are widely considered to be swift ahoof, without requiring any help from the elements—they seem to get around as fast as a rumor—so presumably in a high wind a devil made of paper would move even more speedily because paper is so lightweight.
It is intriguing and even suggestive that three people from seemingly far-flung parts of the Western Hemisphere (Belize, Wisconsin, and an unknown U.S. location) appear to be using the simile "flying/running/going like a paper devil" to very similar effect. But the simile, if it is a shared one, has left little footprint on the Internet thus far, and the similarity in usage may (as Xanne suggests in a comment above) be merely coincidental. And since I'm not even sure that "like a paper devil" qualifies as a shared expression, I'm unable to offer any insight into its source.
Solution 2:
In a comment, @HotLicks notes that there's a similar but not identical phrase, printer's devil.
This phrase has also fallen out of use, but it originally referred to a young boy employed as an apprentice in a print shop, usually given the drudge work.
For example, from ODO:
printer's devil
NOUN
historical
A person, typically a young boy serving as an apprentice, who ran errands in a printing office.
Given that printers deal in paper, then, can we make a connection here to paper devil? Perhaps we can.
See this excerpt from the journal The Teetotaler, Vol 1, dateline circa London 1841, edited by George W. M. Reynolds, where we find on page 169 a tale titled Destiny, attributed to the pseudonymous author The Printer's Devil.
The editor inserts a prefatory note on the term paper devil to provide readers some context, and this description gives us a much stronger flavor of the day-to-day lives of these publishers' apprentices.
["The Printer's Devil," be it known, is the soubriquet gieven to an humble individual employed in nearly all printing establishments for the purpose of dunning authors for copy, &c.; and the alarm and trepidation in which he sometimes throws the Editor, when, on the morning of publication, he laconically exclaims, "Waiting for Copy, Sir!" we suppose has obtained for him one of the unenviable titles of his Satanic Majesty. Sir Walter Scott has, in one of two instances, done him the honour of an especial notice in his immortal works. These sketches, from their abrupt fragmentary character, we suppose, must have been unfinished tales purloined from the literary sancta of some of the inidividuals he occasionally visits.—Ed.]
Here, the editor (through long personal experience with these apprentices) conjectures that the name "devil" was earned from the painful pattern their employers observed when, at the publishing deadline, when they ask the lads for the copy they were charged to obtain from the writers, more often than not hear back "they haven't given it to me yet". That seems plausible to me¹.
It also seems plausible that this would put the editor over the edge, and cause him to upbraid the lad, and send him flying to the authors' residences at top speed to retrieve the promised copy.
At the risk of creating a folk etymology (in other words, take the following with a spoonful of salt): in general, in the days before telephones and instant communication, but with newspapers' daily (and sometimes more frequent) deadlines, I'd expect seeing printers' devils — or even paper devils — frenetically rushing to and fro on busy urban streets to obtain and deliver copy by deadlines was not an uncommon sight.
¹ However, it seems more plausible to me that given these boys' role was to "dun authors for copy", it was the authors who gave them the sobriquet, not the publishers. Imagine having a young boy turn up at your apartments three times a day, without warning, constantly and repeatedly demanding "Have you got that copy yet"? Didn't that printer send the boy to devil you about it, damn him?