An Unabridged Edition from 'The Writings of Thomas Paine, ' Volume One, (1774-1779) edited by Moncure Conway, to include: Epistle to Quakers, A Letter to Franklin in Paris (1778), The Dream Interpreted, A Serious Thought, and Explanatory Notice from an 1848 Uncensored Edition, with A Chronology of Paine's Life at Book's End

A major actor in the American Revolution, English intellectual Thomas Paine (1737 1809) is remembered especially for his pamphlet Common Sense (1776; also reissued in this series), which advocates America's independence from Great Britain. An immediate best-seller, it sold over 100,000 copies in three months. Paine was a dedicated reformer who also lent his support to the French Revolution. First published in 1791, this book was sparked by the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a direct condemnation of the French uprising; and the fourth edition of...

A major actor in the American Revolution, English intellectual Thomas Paine (1737 1809) is remembered especially for his pamphlet Common Sense (1776; also reissued in this series), which advocates America's independence from Great Britain. A dedicated radical, Paine went on to lend his support to the French Revolution. In 1791, he published Rights of Man in response to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a condemnation of the events in France. First published in 1792, this book is a continuation of Rights of Man. While the first volume was a passionate rebuttal of Burke's...

An idealist, a radical, and a master rhetorician, Thomas Paine wrote and lived with a keen sense of urgency and excitement. In The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine declares that all religious traditions are ultimately established for the dependence of mankind. He openly criticizes the Bible and many of the fallacies contained within, as well as providing a shrewd analysis of Christianity and how it developed from its pagan ancestry-arguments many critics claim carry weight today. Paine alienated many of his countrymen with his incendiary viewpoints. Forced to leave America for England, Paine...

Published anonymously in 1776, the year of the American Declaration of Independence, Paine's Common Sense became an immediate best-seller, with fifty-six editions printed in that year alone. It was this pamphlet, more than any other factor, which helped to spark off the movement that established the independence of the United States. From his experience of revolutionary politics, Paine drew those principles of fundamental human rights which, he felt, must stand no matter what excesses are committed to obtain them, and which he later formulated in his Rights of Man.
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This volume includes J. M. Opal's introduction, "Thomas Paine and the Revolutionary Enlightenment, 1770s-90s," which provides essential biographical and historical details across three tumultuous decades. Paine's most important works--fromCommon Sense (1776) through Agrarian Justice (1796)--are reprinted and are accompanied by explanatory annotations. Supporting materials include a wide range of documents from the turbulent years following the publication of bothCommon Sense and the Declaration of Independence. These include Pennsylvania's gradual emancipation...

Drawing from numerous historical sources, the editor summarizes the views of Paine and Jefferson on liberty in America, and on the contrasting political realities in Europe as well.

A major actor in the American Revolution, the English intellectual Thomas Paine (1737 1809) is best remembered for his pamphlet Common Sense (1776), which advocated American independence from Britain. Although accorded honorary French citizenship in 1792 for his republican Rights of Man, Paine was later imprisoned and narrowly escaped the guillotine. It was around this time that he started to write The Age of Reason, originally published in two parts between 1794 and 1795. In Part 1, Paine outlines his personal religious views and attacks institutional faith as a human invention, while Part 2...