The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. 1

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Excerpt from The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. 1: 1774-1779 No apology is needed for an edition of Thomas Paine's writings, but rather for the tardiness of its appearance. For although there have been laborious and useful collections of his more famous works, none of them can be fairly described as adequate. The compilers have failed to discover many characteristic essays, they printed from imperfect texts, and were unable to find competent publishers courageous enough to issue in suitable form the Works of Paine. It is not creditable that the world has had to wait so long for a complete edition of writings which excited the gratitude and admiration of the founders of republican liberty in America and Europe, nevertheless those writings, so far as accessible, have been read and pondered by multitudes, and are to-day in large and increasing demand. This indeed is not wonderful. Time, which destroys much literature, more slowly overtakes that which was inspired by any great human cause. "It was the cause of America that made me an author, " wrote Paine at the close of the American Revolution, and in the preface to his first pamphlet he had said: "The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." In the presence of such great argument he made no account of the poems and magazine essays published before the appearance of his first pamphlet, "Common Sense, " - the earliest plea for an independent American Republic. The magazine essays, which are printed in this volume, and the poems, reserved for the last, while they prove Paine's literary ability, also reveal in him an overpowering moral sentiment and human sympathy which must necessarily make his literary art their organ. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.