Description

Franklin Library leather edition of Thomas Paine's "POLITICAL WRITINGS," a limited edition, Edited by Moncure Daniel Conway, one of the 100 GREATEST BOOKS OF ALL TIME series, published in 1978. [Book has "Common Sense," "The American Crises," and "Rights of Man."] Bound in deep hunter green leather, the book has French moire silk end leaves, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, a satin book marker, hubbed spine, gold gilding on three edges---in near FINE condition. Thomas Paine, who lived from 1737-1809, was born in England, the son of a corset maker to whose trade he was apprenticed. His unsettled life to 1774 included residences in various towns, two brief unhappy marriages and such occupations as schoolteacher, tobacconist, grocer, and exciseman. While lobbying for the excisemen, he met BENJAMIN FRANKIN who was impressed by Paine's learning and interests and helped him to start anew in America. Arriving at Philadelphia, Paine contributed to the PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE and achieved fame with the publication of "Common Sense." Paine served in the Continental Army and published 16 pamphlets in support of the Revolutionary War. He was rewarded by an appointment as secretary of the congressional committee on foreign affairs. The plea for a strong federal union that he had made in "Common Sense" was reiterated in "Public Good," opposing Virginia's claim to western land. After an appointment as clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly and a trip to France for money and stores, he retired to a farm at New Rochelle that New York presented to him. In 1787, he went to France and England and traveled between Paris and London in the cause of a world revolution. "The Rights of Man" was a defense of the French Revolution against the attacks of Edmund Burke. Paine was arrested for treason in England and banished. He was made a French citizen by the Assembly in 1792. In jail he wrote "The Age of Reason," his great deistic work. Eventually Paine returned to the U.S. where he accused President George Washington of plotting against him. Paine also was involved with Thomas Jefferson and became involved in a bitter partisan dispute with JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Paine's last years in the U.S. were marked by poverty, ill-health, and ostracism. Malevolent persons of all parties, who feared his radical freethinking accused him of drunkenness, cowardice, adultery, and atheism. 627 pages. I offer combined shipping.