Common Sense and Other Writings (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Thomas Paine had a galvanizing impact on pre-Revolutionary America. Before Common Sense was published, many residents of the colonies were unsure whether independence from Britain was in their best interests. The clarity and energy of Paine’s landmark tract, one of the best-selling texts of the eighteenth century, turned the tide of public opinion toward revolution. The impact of Common Sense, coupled with Paine’s intellectual relationship with many of America’s founding fathers, led John Adams, who wrote bitterly about Paine at times, to deliver the oft-quoted epigram that history would ascribe the Revolution to this incendiary pamphleteer. Thomas Edison elaborated on this sentiment in 1925, remarking that Paine “was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen” (from “The Philosophy of Paine”). Where General Washington was the hero of the sword, Thomas Paine was the originator of ideas.

Paine’s work has several other distinctions. His “African Slavery in America” (₁₇₇₅) was among the earliest abolitionist writings in the colonies, while his series of essays collectively called The American Crisis (1776-1783) frequently receives credit for introducing the name “the United States of America.” And the U.S. Social Security Administration praises Agrarian Justice (₁₇₉₇) for including the first proposal for benefits to the elderly in the United States.

Nonetheless, the great radical’s legacy has been troubled at best. This is in great part due to the anticlerical opinions expressed in The Age of Reason (₁₇₉₄), which Paine wrote after a lifetime of witnessing religion’s abuse at the hands of politics and the church. The treatise earned the author countless enemies beyond those who disagreed with his political views. For numerous people, The Age of Reason overshadowed Paine’s valuable service on behalf of American liberty. Many of his ideological opponents stooped to the lowest forms of slander in their attempts to discredit Paine and his notions of freedom: Hostile newspaper articles and vicious, so-called biographies by George Chalmers (writing in ₁₇₉₁ as Francis Oldys) and James Cheetham (published 1809) were widely circulated.

Partially because of these spurious biographies, the public for whom Paine had striven to advocate believed him to be a drunk, philanderer, tyrant, and thief, and he was dismissed during his later years, and after his death. The author, who retained none of the profits from his publications—he donated the proceeds to the American Revolution and other causes—died penniless and alone in New York City in 1809. Memories of Paine were not fond. A popular nursery rhyme appeared:

Most famously, Theodore Roosevelt, largely ignorant of Paine’s contributions, dismissed the author as a “filthy little atheist” in his 1891 biography of Gouverneur Morris. This invidious tag sticks to Paine even today. The mid-nineteenth century, however, also saw some of the first balanced assessments of Paine to appear after his death. But it was the next century that would embrace Thomas Paine and his nuanced history, in the form of new scholarship, renewed publication of Paine’s writing, and, most interestingly, original plays written in the hopes of humanizing “Poor Tom Paine.”

Twentieth-Century Accounts of Thomas Paine

In the twentieth century, many writers presented more historically accurate estimations of Paine, including several interesting dramas based on the author’s life. The best-selling novel Citizen Tom Paine (1943), by Howard Fast, a prominent American communist who was jailed for three months during the dark days of McCarthyism, presents Paine as a hothead idealist who has trouble getting along in society due to his brashness and refusal to accept the status quo. Eschewing the elaborate attention to setting that can bog down a historical novel, Fast’s energetic work successfully imparts the vitality and urgency of Paine’s life and message. The book also sensitively describes the inner torments that shaped Paine’s irascible character. Where some ultimately positive portrayals of Paine shy away from the dark elements of the patriot’s life—his drinking, his repellent personal hygiene—Fast’s book portrays the ugly side of the Common Sense author. Featuring the founding fathers as supporting characters, Citizen Tom Paine deftly portrays both the American and the French Revolutions through Paine’s unique point of view.

Fast took up the topic of Paine again for his ₁₉86 play bearing the same title. But Fast’s stage adaptation of Citizen Tom Paine benefits from wisdom garnered from more than four decades of experience. “I didn’t write it from the book at all,” Fast told the Washington Post in 1985. “There’s almost half a century between then and now. When I was writing the novel I was 23 and a revolutionary. Now I’m 71 and someone who’s been a revolutionary. The play is about how a revolution destroys its makers.”

Other plays inspired by Paine include Joseph Lewis’s The Tragic Patriot (1954), a production in five acts that follows the author’s adventures in France. Using direct quotations from Paine’s writings for some of its dialogue, the play traces Paine’s arrival in France, his imprisonment, and his rescue by James Monroe. The play ends as Paine returns to America, but not before he denounces Napoleon for betraying the ideals of the French Revolution. The Tragic Patriot packs in as much historical detail as possible, featuring many very long monologues, real letters quoted verbatim, and a final script totaling more than 2₀₀ pages.

A more experimental play, Paul Foster’s Tom Paine (1967) introduces a character known as “Tom Paine’s Reputation” in addition to the real Tom Paine. The innovative production calls for audience participation, extended improvisation on the part of the actors, and surreal set pieces such as turtles with candles on their backs. Paine at thirty-seven appears on stage alongside Paine at sixteen and Paine on his deathbed. The author’s entire life takes shape through the aggregation of these animated selves.

Jack Shepherd’s In Lambeth (1989) speculates about the relationship between Paine and another great eighteenth-century thinker, the poet William Blake. Set in Blake’s garden in Lambeth (near London), the play features the dramatic counterpoints between the practicality of Paine and the divine visions of Blake as they discuss the French Revolution. Shepherd’s preface states that he based the play on Blake’s idea that “opposition is true friendship.” In a dramatic highlight of the play, the poet asks Paine, in regard to revolution, “How can you be sure you have not torn down one form of tyranny only to replace it with another?” Paine replies, “You can’t be sure.... You have to dedicate yourself to the idea, to the hope that society can be changed for the better.” The play ends with Blake urging his friend to flee England to save his life.