THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809)

Paine's famous treatise is an eloquent piece of propagandizing demagoguery, written not for the minds of political diplomacy, but for the hearts of an enraged public tired of listening to reason. Paine, seeing and feeling the frustrations of an America kept from power by a British political system based on privilege and peerage, seized on the image of America as an archetypal New World capable of breaking the cycle and starting anew. "The cause of America," Paine wrote, "is in a great measure the cause of mankind." Common Sense did more to fan the flames of rebellion than any other piece of writing during the American revolutionary era.

Common Sense was published anonymously by Robert Bell in Philadelphia in January of 1776, just over a year after Thomas Paine's arrival in America and six months before the Declaration of Independence. Its powerful influence and popularity are staggering. By the end of the year, over twenty different editions had appeared in both America and Britain, and sales easily topped 100,000 copies that year. The Declaration of Independence shows the influence of Paine, and the Legislature of Pennsylvania awarded the author five hundred pounds for his contribution to the cause of American liberty. The copy exhibited is one of the numerous editions published in 1776, this one reprinted by Edes & Gill and Fleet.