Background
Paine was born in Thetford, England, on January 29, 1737, the son of a poor farmer and corsetmaker. He was a son of a Quaker father and an Anglican mother.
Thomas Paine
Old School at Thetford Grammar School, where Paine was educated.
Thomas Paine
Portrait of Thomas Paine by Matthew Pratt, 1785–1795.
Old School at Thetford Grammar School, where Paine was educated.
Thomas Paine
Portrait of Thomas Paine by Matthew Pratt, 1785–1795.
(Thomas Paine's collected writings - Common Sense; The Cri...)
Thomas Paine's collected writings - Common Sense; The Crisis; Rights of Man; The Age of Reason; Agrarian Justice.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1987817923/?tag=2022091-20
(An Unabridged Edition (Parts I and II) From 'The Writings...)
An Unabridged Edition (Parts I and II) From 'The Writings Of Thomas Paine,' Edited By Moncure Conway With All Charts and Tables, Notes and Footnotes, To Include A Chronology Of Paine's Life
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603863419/?tag=2022091-20
(This major collection demonstrates the extent to which Th...)
This major collection demonstrates the extent to which Thomas Paine was an inspiration to the Americans in their struggle for independence, a passionate supporter of the French Revolution and perhaps the outstanding English radical writer of his age. It contains all of Paine's major works including Rights of Man, his groundbreaking defence of the revolutionary cause in France; Common Sense, which won thousands over to the side of the American rebels; and the first part of The Age of Reason, a ferocious attack on Christianity. The shorter pieceson capital punishment, social reform and the abolition of slaveryalso confirm the great versatility and power of this master of democratic prose. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140444963/?tag=2022091-20
(Four of Thomas Paine's finest and most succinct works of ...)
Four of Thomas Paine's finest and most succinct works of political philosophy are collected in this superb compilation, which has Paine's original and vital tables appended. A much-respected thinker of his time, and a Founding Father of the United States, Thomas Paine wrote a number of political treatises. These discussed ideas that were potent in the climate of the eighteenth century as the United States emerged as a young nation. The works contained in this volume are as follows: Common Sense - One of Paine's most famous works, Common Sense advocates and discusses the reasons why the Thirteen Colonies would be in a better position by forming their own, independent nation. Published at first anonymously at the dawn of the American Revolution in January 1776, this eloquent document enjoyed huge circulation, and was appreciated for effectively summarizing the grievances that the colonists had with the British administration. The Crisis - Also titled 'The American Crisis', this essay by Paine discusses the many challenges and hardships that the separatists face in their violent struggle for independence. Paine published this work in a total of sixteen parts, each of which was signed 'Common Sense' in reference to his authorship of his earlier, famed essay. Each installment served to buoy fighting spirits and maintain the revolution's strength by reminding the people of the worthiness of the cause. Rights of Man (Parts I and II) - This lengthy treatise discusses the fundamental and inalienable rights of an oppressed people to revolt. Published in two parts at the time of the French revolution in 1791 and 1792, Paine mounts a spirited defense of violent overthrow during circumstances where government does not ensure the inalienable rights of its people. The book itself varies between logical arguments, emotional and rhetorical appeals, and contemporary narratives, evidencing the hurried pace at which Paine assembled his defense. The Age of Reason (Parts I, II and III) - In this three-part work, published in 1794, 1795, and 1807, Paine disparages the traditional system of the Christian church and organised religion, and the Bible as a book beyond question. It sold well and was praised by critics of the established church, but aroused great opposition from religious figures. Thomas Jefferson advised Paine to delay publication of the final part for fear of backlash; as such, it did not appear until 1807. Renowned as one of the foremost intellectuals and political theorists of the 18th century, Thomas Paine would enjoy a sizable reputation both in the fledgling United States and in Europe. His political activism, which embodied the spirit of self-determination with which Americans fought, remains much-admired by historians and individuals alike in the present day.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1543261744/?tag=2022091-20
(Thomas Paine was the first international revolutionary. H...)
Thomas Paine was the first international revolutionary. His Common Sense (1776) was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution--and his Rights of Man (1791-2), the most famous defense of the French Revolution, sent out a clarion call for revolution throughout the world. Paine paid the price for his principles: he was outlawed in Britain, narrowly escaped execution in France, and was vilified as an atheist and a Jacobin on his return to America. This new edition contains the complete texts of both Rights of Man and Common Sense, as well as six other powerfully political writings--American Crisis I, American Crisis XIII, Agrarian Justice, Letter to Jefferson, Letter Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation, and Dissertation on the First Principles of Government--all of which illustrate why Paine's ideas still resonate in the modern welfare states of today. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019953800X/?tag=2022091-20
( One of the most influential writers and reformers of hi...)
One of the most influential writers and reformers of his age, Thomas Paine successfully publicized the issues of his time in pamphlets that clearly and persuasively argued for political independence and social reform. Rights of Man, his greatest and most widely read work, is considered a classic statement of faith in democracy and egalitarianism. The first part of this document, dedicated to George Washington, appeared in 1791. Defending the early events of the French Revolution, it spoke on behalf of democracy, equality, and a new European order. Part Two, which appeared the following year, is perhaps Paine's finest example of political pamphleteering and an exemplary work that supported social security for workers, public employment for those in need of work, abolition of laws limiting wages, and other social reforms. Written in the language of common speech, Rights of Man was a sensation in the United States, defended by many who agreed with Paine's defense of republican government; but in Britain, it was labeled by Parliament as highly seditious, causing the government to suppress it and prosecute the British-born Paine for treason. Regarded by historian E. P. Thompson as the "foundation-text for the English working-class movement," this much-read and much-studied book remains an inspiring, rational work that paved the way for the growth and development of radical traditions in American and British society.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486408930/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486296024/?tag=2022091-20
Paine was born in Thetford, England, on January 29, 1737, the son of a poor farmer and corsetmaker. He was a son of a Quaker father and an Anglican mother.
He attended Thetford Grammar School (1744–1749), at a time when there was no compulsory education. Paine's formal education was meagre, just enough to enable him to master reading, writing, and arithmetic.
At 13 he began working with his father as a corset maker before running away at age 16 to sail on a British privateer in the Seven Years’ War. Returning to London, he worked as a corsetiere, held a minor government post, and taught school briefly. He succeeded in 1762 in gaining an appointment in the excise, but was discharged for neglect of duty in 1765. Three years later, however, he received another appointment at Lewes in Sussex. Paine’s wages as an excise officer were too low to support his family and the family shop barely kept them alive. At the request of other excise officers, Paine drew up a memorial urging Parliament to raise their wages, presenting it in 1773. Parliament was not persuaded, and Paine’s superiors fired him. Paine had to sell the shop to escape imprisonment for debt.
In 1774 he came to America, sponsored by Benjamin Franklin. He found work with printer Robert Aitken, publisher of the Pennsylvania Magazine, which had six hundred subscribers. Within a few months Paine’s vigorous literary style had attracted more readers, and circulation increased to more than fifteen hundred. While editing the Pennsylvania Magazine (1775 - 1777), he exerted great influence during a period of indecision by his fervent, many-sided arguments for American independence, first with his pamphlet “Common Sense”, published on January 10, 1776. More than one-half million copies circulated in the colonies, and long excerpts appeared in newspapers and magazines. Written in simple convincing language, it was read everywhere, and the open movement to independence dated from its publication.
In 1776 Paine wrote a new pamphlet “The American Crisis”, attempted to bolster morale and resistance among patriots. General George Washington had his troops assemble to listen to the first four essays of Paine’s new pamphlet to keep up the soldiers' morale and favor the cause of union. The pamphlet rallied Washington’s troops, whose surprise victories at Trenton and Princeton in turn rallied public opinion. Paine would publish fourteen Crisis essays over the next seven years, all designed to strengthen American resolve and to comment on specific issues of a moment.
During the war Paine served as the secretary to Congress’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and as the clerk of the Pennsylvania assembly. Paine continued to write on political questions, defending the Bank of North America and criticizing the citizens of Rhode Island for scuttling the proposed five percent impost duty. Paine also turned more attention to scientific matters, trying to develop a smokeless candle and inventing an iron bridge that would not require piers to support its span. To perfect the bridge he sailed for Europe in April 1787. That same year he went to France where he met with Thomas Jefferson, the American minister to France, and Lafayette, the French aristocrat and military officer.
When Burke's “Reflections on the Revolution in France” appeared in 1790 Paine at once wrote his answer “The Rights of Man. ” The first part appeared on March 13, 1791 and had an enormous circulation before the government took alarm and endeavoured to suppress it, thereby exciting intense curiosity to see it, even at the risk of heavy penalties. In May 1792 Paine was indicted for treason, but before the trial came off he was elected by the department of Calais to the French convention, and escaped into France, followed by a sentence of outlawry. In December 1793 he was jailed for ten months because he opposed the execution of Louis XVI. He narrowly escaped the guillotine and nearly died in prison. The American minister to France, James Monroe, secured Paine’s release in November 1794.
Paine recovered from his imprisonment at Monroe’s home, writing two more pamphlets: “The Age of Reason” (1794–1795), an attack on organized religion, and “Agrarian Justice” (1797), a call for the redistribution of wealth.
At Jefferson's invitation Paine sailed for America in 1802, but while his services in behalf of the colonies were gratefully remembered, his “The Age of Reason” and his attack on Washington had alienated many of his friends. He spent his last years on a farm in New Rochelle, New York.
His writings convinced many American colonists of the need for independence. Thomas Paine came to America in 1774, an unknown and insignificant Englishman. Yet two years later he stood at the center of the stage of history, a world figure, an intimate of great men, and a pamphleteer extraordinary.
For 2 years he was secretary to Congress's Committee on Foreign Affairs. When he lost that post in 1779 for disclosing confidential data, Pennsylvania, whose 1776 Constitution he had helped establish, appointed him clerk of the Assembly. In this capacity he wrote the preamble to the state's law abolishing slavery.
When Washington appealed for supplies, Paine organized a solicitation, contributed $500 from his own meager salary, and helped organize the Bank of North America to finance the supplies. However, his trip abroad to solicit additional funds lost him his Assembly clerkship.
(This major collection demonstrates the extent to which Th...)
( One of the most influential writers and reformers of hi...)
(An Unabridged Edition (Parts I and II) From 'The Writings...)
(Four of Thomas Paine's finest and most succinct works of ...)
(Thomas Paine's collected writings - Common Sense; The Cri...)
(Thomas Paine was the first international revolutionary. H...)
Paine was actually a deist, although he was charged of atheism as he tried to demonstrate that the Bible was not divinely inspired but was the work of men intent on maintaining power. He tried to demolish the institutional church, which he felt had conspired with wealth and privilege to oppress humankind.
Paine criticized Presidents Washington and Adams for their pro-British and anti-French policies.
Fears for the American union, however, belied Paine's optimism. He had appealed to Virginia in a pamphlet, Public Good (1780), to surrender its western land claims to the national government so that Maryland would ratify the Articles of Confederation. In letters in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal (November 1782 to February 1783) he urged Rhode Island to approve a national tariff to give Congress adequate financial resources.
Expressive of the Enlightenment's faith in the power of reason to free man from all "tyrannical and false systems . .. and enable him to be free, " Paine's vision of universal peace, goodness, and justice appeared even more revolutionary as nationalistic aspirations and bourgeois complacency replaced the enthusiasm and cosmopolitanism of the 18th century.
Quotations:
Again Paine's phrasemaking was impressive: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will . .. shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. "
On April 19, 1783, Paine concluded his Crisis series on a note of expectation: "'The times that tried men's souls' are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished. "
About his own religious beliefs, Paine wrote in The Age of Reason:
"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel. "
While Paine never described himself as a deist, he did write the following: "The opinions I have advanced . .. are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation, by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues – and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now – and so help me God. "
Upon return to his farm in New Rochelle, New York (277 acres which was awarded to him in 1784 by the State of New York) he was ostracized from the community and abuse was heaped upon him. He retreated to Manhattan, where he died, childless, scorned and impoverished.
Quotes from others about the person
The pamphlet revealed Paine's facility as a phrasemaker-"The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth"; "Oh ye that love mankind . .. that dare oppose not only tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth!" -but it was also buttressed by striking diplomatic, commercial, and political arguments from separation from Britain. Common Sense was an instantaneous success.
"I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine." So wrote John Adams in 1805.
Historian Roy Basler, the editor of Lincoln's papers, said Paine had a strong influence on Lincoln's style:
"No other writer of the eighteenth century, with the exception of Jefferson, parallels more closely the temper or gist of Lincoln's later thought. In style, Paine above all others affords the variety of eloquence which, chastened and adapted to Lincoln's own mood, is revealed in Lincoln's formal writings."
The inventor Thomas Edison said:
"I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic ... It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine's works in my boyhood ... it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker's views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me, then, about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember, very vividly, the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine's writings, and I recall thinking, at that time, 'What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!' My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days."
Among his many talents, Thomas Paine was also an accomplished — though not widely-known — inventor. Some of his devices were never developed beyond the planning stage, but there are a few of note. He developed a crane for lifting heavy objects, a smokeless candle, and tinkered with the idea of using gunpowder as a method for generating power. For years, Paine had possessed a fascination with bridges. He made several attempts to build bridges in both America and England after the Revolutionary War. Perhaps his most impressive engineering achievement was the Sunderland Bridge across the Wear River at Wearmonth, England. His goal was to build a single span bridge with no piers. In 1796, the 240-foot span bridge was completed. It was the second iron bridge ever built and at the time the largest in the world. Renovated in 1857, the bridge remained until 1927, when it was replaced.
On September 27, 1759, Thomas Paine married Mary Lambert. His first wife died in 1760, a year after their marriage. On March 26, 1771, at the age of 34, he married Elizabeth Ollive, his landlord's daughter.
