Common Sense

Thomas Paine

Published by H. D. Symonds, 1793

About this Item

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, London 1793. Following the publication of Rights of Man at the end of 1791, several printers re-issued Paine s famous Common Sense. This hardbound volume is one of these. The volume bears an introduction and an appendix, with the title page reading in part: "A New Edition, with several Additions in the Body of the Work. To which is added an Appendix; together with an Address to the People called Quakers. N. B. The New Addition here given increases the Work upwards of One-Third." This pamphlet utilized small print and thus consists of 36 pages of text plus a front-page engraving of Paine. Much of the print is faint and some missing print was filled-in by hand long ago by some unknown person. Having left school when he was 12, Thomas Paine, the son of a corset maker trained to take-up that occupation, revealed no genius as he went from job to job. But on January 10, 1776, a month before he turned 39, Paine exploded onto the transatlantic stage as the foremost advocate of obtaining liberty for the colonies by fighting the British. Paine himself commented that any literary talent he might have had was buried in me and might ever have continued so, had not the necessity of the times dragged and driven him to write. (The Crisis, No. VIII, ¶6.) Historians credit Paine s 1776 publication of Common Sense, which he allowed others to reprint, with galvanizing public opinion for independence which led to the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and the United States becoming an independent non-monarchical nation. Paine s importance to the cause was cemented by the first issue of The Crisis which George Washington had read aloud to the army he commanded. Without Paine s pen, the war might well have been lost almost as soon as it began. Seller Inventory # 4

Bibliographic Details

Title: Common Sense

Publisher: H. D. Symonds

Publication Date: 1793

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good