The Life of Thomas Paine

James Cheetham

Published by Southwick and Pelsue, 1809

About this Item

James Cheetham, The Life of Thomas Paine, N.Y.: Southwick & Pelsue, 1809. Published in the year of Paine s death, this is likely his first biography except for the fact that this biography is actually a polemic attacking Paine s even today remarkably enlightened ideals, words, and deeds. This anti-Paine volume is an important part, along with Age of Infidelity, of any Thomas Paine collection. Few have lived as incredibly impactful lives as Thomas Paine (1737-1809). Even Cheetham, immediately after condemning Paine as vain beyond any man I ever read of, conceded that he was in great measure the parent of the American Revolution. (At p. 48.) Thomas Paine, the son of a corset-maker trained to take-up that occupation, left school when he was twelve. During the first 38 years of his life, Paine went from job to job and engaged in a few exploits. He ran off as a teen to be a pirate but was apprehended by his Quaker father.* Paine later fulfilled that ambition by serving briefly on a privateer vessel when he was 19. He wrote a petition seeking higher wages for English excisemen (read: tax collectors) arguing that more money would make them more diligent and more honest. During his first year in Philadelphia, he wrote for the Pennsylvania Magazine, and he and another worked out a formula for home-made saltpeter which was needed as an ingredient of gunpowder. A full-fledged colonial rebellion was becoming possible. 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. As the author of Common Sense (1776), Rights of Man (1791, 1792), Age of Reason (1794), and The [American] Crisis (1776-1783), Paine was far ahead of his times as a political and economic thinker and essayist. His writings fill ten volumes. Paine served in government on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. When the French Revolution went awry he literally almost lost his head to Madam Guillotine. Front and back bindings are cracked inside but fully intact. Brown leather is slightly scrapped. Some spotting. A page has a tear but is intact. Nicely printed. Albany Library stamp and 1614 on cover page. Spine has 1614 in gilt at top. No writing or marks observed on other pages. This book is handsome. Paine s Pen pays for shipping insurance on this volume. * Some have mistakenly labeled Paine a Quaker. His mother was Anglican, his father a Quaker who presumably instilled in Thomas some notions, but he was famously an outspoken unrepentant deist. Seller Inventory # 6

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Life of Thomas Paine

Publisher: Southwick and Pelsue

Publication Date: 1809

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st Edition