The first article in this series focused on Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason (three parts, 1794, 1795, and 1807), the last of what Eoin Carter in this magazine recently called Paine’s three ‘era-defining texts’. But I don’t think I should leave Paine without acknowledging the huge significance of his Rights of Man (two parts, 1791-2) to freethinkers—and, in fact, to anybody on what might be loosely described as the progressive side of politics.

In Rights of Man, Paine makes the case that individuals have rights intrinsic to their humanity, independent of the whims or ambitions of political leaders. Individuals are citizens, not subjects, and citizens exercise rights independently of the supposedly God-given authority of aristocrats and monarchs. Here is the case for human rights as a secularist issue (and the reason that this writer regards republicanism and secularism as closely intertwined). For Paine, government must surely be based on the consent of the governed.

Rights of Man was a direct response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), an attack on the French Revolution and the British radicals who admired it, and who in some cases regarded it as a blueprint for Britain. The tract tore into monarchy, traditional social institutions, and the hereditary principle in favour of a thorough-going liberal democracy.

Part 1 was originally to be published by Joseph Johnson, but Johnson withdrew from the project following several visits from government agents, correctly sensing that the book would attract bitter controversy. Paine reacted quickly and transferred the work to J.S. Jordan, who was made of sterner stuff, and the book appeared on 16 March 1791. It became an instant bestseller, with around 50,000 copies in circulation by May, albeit at the relatively high price of three shillings. Numerous editions followed and cheaper ones boosted the book’s circulation, leading Paine to boast that it had outsold anything published in recent years, if not ever.

Jordan published Part 2 the following February with a circulation exceeding even that of Part 1. Close to a million and a half copies were sold in Britain during Paine’s lifetime. By now the furore Paine had provoked was reaching fever pitch, with the flames further fanned by a vicious campaign of slander headed by the Prime Minister, William Pitt. While the consequences for Paine were unpleasant, it seems that the attention Pitt and others drew to Paine’s work only boosted sales. In fear for his life, Paine fled the country in 1792 and headed to France, where he received a hero’s welcome. Back in England, his effigies burned brightly and he was convicted, in absentia, of seditious libel against the Crown.

Shortly before leaving, Paine had penned the obscurely titled Letter Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation, which has been described as ‘practically a third part of Rights of Man’. This brief tract dealt with the issue of how the principles of Rights of Man could be implemented. Paine argued for the establishment of a national convention since a corrupt House of Commons and a hereditary House of Lords and monarchy could hardly be trusted to reform themselves. In some ways, this tract was the most inflammatory and radical of all.

Unfortunately, Jordan’s courage was exhausted and he withdrew from publishing Paine’s works following threats of a sedition charge. At first, Paine took over publication himself under the imprint ‘the printers and booksellers of London’, but when he fled England, he placed it in the hands of H.D. Symonds, who not only published the two parts of Rights of Man but did so in cheap editions at sixpence each. Symonds, in concert with Thomas Clio Rickman, then went on to publish the Letter at the low price of fourpence.  Both Symonds and Rickman were persecuted for their trouble, with Rickman following Paine by fleeing to France and Symonds being gaoled for two years.

Paine’s work circulated in huge numbers among the population despite the government’s best efforts to suppress it and it remains in print to this day. I have heard it said that Paine is largely forgotten, and it is certainly true that many, particularly the very religious, would prefer that this were the case. But even if the man is forgotten, his ideas live on and still influence the character of political discourse. It is extraordinary how salient Paine remains.  Over more than two centuries, different individuals have alighted on different aspects of Paine’s work which support their own opinions and/or campaigns. Over the years, Paine’s work has been published in various editions by various people. I have several of these in my collection, and their preliminary remarks demonstrate the many uses to which Paine’s work has been put over the years.

Richard Carlile wrote a preface to his 1820 edition of Paine’s Political and Miscellaneous Works from Dorchester Gaol, where he was serving a sentence for blasphemy and seditious libel. He alights on Paine’s ‘[exploding of] the idea of hereditary right in priests, nobles, and princes, and hereditary wrong in the people.’ To Carlile goes a large share of the credit for keeping Paine’s writings alive during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century—a period of severe government repression in the wake of the French Revolution and the fear that the radical contagion could spread across the Channel.

I also have an edition of The Political Works of Thomas Paine ‘published by T.M. Wheeler, at the Office of the Chartist Co-operative Land Society’ (c. 1843), in which a copy of the People’s Charter of 1838 is also bound. The preface presents Paine as an antidote to ignorance which, according to the author, holds millions in subservience and poverty. Paine inspired the Chartists in their struggle for constitutional reform.

In my collection, there is also an 1883 Freethought Publishing Company edition of Paine’s work with an introductory note by Charles Bradlaugh, the leading secularist, republican, and freethinker of his age, and the founder of the National Secular Society (NSS). He suggests that this edition would be useful for young politicians, who would find Paine’s ‘simple Saxon style’ containing ‘vigour and backbone’ worth imitating. (How very Bradlaugh those words are!) For many years the NSS celebrated Paine’s birthday on 29 January—a sort of freethinkers’ Christmas. (For more on the Freethought Publishing Company and its premises at 28 Stonecutter Street, London, see my previous article on the subject.)

In 1891, the Freethinker founder G.W. Foote’s Progressive Publishing Company published a centenary edition of Rights of Man. This edition contained an introduction by J.M. Wheeler, a close friend of Foote’s, sub-editor of the Freethinker, and a keen student of freethought, whose illness and early death cut short his ambition of writing a history of the subject. Wheeler characterises Paine as ‘the plague of princes’ and describes him as the ‘best-abused man of a century ago’. He gives him credit for his influence on ‘the popular mind’ and for expressing the widespread desire for freedom of thought and expression.

Watts and Co. republished Rights of Man in a Thinker’s Library edition in 1937 for the Rationalist Press Association. In his introduction, the socialist G.D.H. Cole latched upon Paine as a champion of the poor and approved of his belief ‘in using the State as a practical instrument for the promotion of the welfare of its citizens’, dependent on ‘complete democratic equality’ and ‘democratic representation’.

Various shades of radicals, liberals, reformers, and democratic socialists have alighted on rather different aspects of Rights of Man—and Paine’s work more generally—over the years, but it seems to me that for those who strive for a better, more democratic, and fairer world, this old but strangely current book remains a touchstone, whether the man who wrote it is recognised or not. As G.W. Foote often remarked, it is ideas that change the world rather than votes.

Further reading

Image of the week: ‘The world is my country, to do good my religion!’ by Bob Forder

Introducing ‘Paine: A Fantastical Visual Biography’, by Polyp, by Paul Fitzgerald

Christopher Hitchens and the long afterlife of Thomas Paine, by Daniel James Sharp

‘There is nothing easy or empty about humanity and reason’: in memoriam Jim Herrick (1944–2023), by Bob Forder

From the archive: ‘A House Divided’, by Nigel Sinnott

Image of the week: ‘Wha wants me’, a caricature of Thomas Paine by Isaac Cruikshank (1792), by Daniel James Sharp

From the archive: imprisoned for blasphemy, by Emma Park

Charles Bradlaugh and George Jacob Holyoake: their contrasting reputations as Secularists and Radicals, by Edward Royle

Is all publicity good publicity? How the first editor of the Freethinker attracted the public’s attention, by Clare Stainthorp

On trial for blasphemy: the Freethinker’s first editor and offensive cartoons, by Bob Forder

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Review of ‘A Dirty, Filthy Book’ by Michael Meyer, by Bob Forder

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

The post Books from Bob’s Library #2: Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’ appeared first on The Freethinker.

Introduction

In common with other members of my family, I love books. Not just their contents (which are, of course, very important) but their appearance, smell, and feel—the older, the better. Their associations with events and people never cease to fascinate me.

My family’s book addiction goes back to my great grandfather, Robert Joseph Forder, who was secretary of the National Secular Society (NSS) throughout most of the heroic Bradlaugh years (1866-90; for more information on Charles Bradlaugh and the history of the NSS, see my video lecture series) and who then became a publisher of freethought literature until he died in 1901. His premises were at 28 Stonecutter Street, which was also the headquarters of the NSS and the birthplace of the Freethinker. In those days, being a freethought publisher carried a high status, following as it did in the heroic footsteps of Daniel Isaac Eaton, Richard Carlile, Henry Hetherington, and James Watson, to name but a few (more on Eaton and Carlile below). I think Robert Joseph’s importance as a publisher of birth control literature is often underrated or ignored.

Robert Joseph’s son, Robert William, became a bookseller and ran bookshops on Charing Cross Road in the interwar years, sometimes aided by his son (and my father), Robert Edwin. After the war, Robert Edwin became a teacher but spent most of his Saturdays at jumble sale book stalls or in second-hand bookshops. He was rarely seen without a book in one hand, and he built up a small but interesting collection of freethought publications. I inherited these when he died, far too young, in 1973.

I became a teacher and, following a chance school staffroom encounter in 1983, I made the acquaintance of Kit Mouat. Kit was a feisty woman, a one-time Freethinker editor and author who was ill and knew she was dying. She had issued freethought book catalogues and persuaded me to take over, selling me her stock. Over the next few years, and until the advent of online bookselling, I issued fifteen catalogues, each with around 400-500 items, and sold thousands of items all over the world. The US was always the largest market. I occasionally look back at the catalogues and blanch when I see the asking price of what are now regarded as antiquarian rarities. It is an unfortunate characteristic of the bibliophile bookseller that each sale brings regret.

My part-time career brought me into contact with many of the leading freethinkers and freethought institutions in the English-speaking world. The most memorable conversations were with Madalyn Murray O’Hair, founder of American Atheists. Madalyn and I had lively telephone exchanges laced with foul language (on her part). At the time she was endeavouring to build up a library and archive in Austin, Texas and was on the hunt for material of the type I was selling. She thought I should offer everything to her first, ahead of other customers. In 1995 I issued a catalogue but heard nothing from Texas. Only later did it transpire that Madalyn with her son and granddaughter had been murdered and their bodies dismembered and hidden. It wasn’t until 2001 that their remains were recovered, with Madalyn being identified by the serial number on her hip prosthesis.

Other memorable acquaintances included Dr Gordon Stein, editor of The American Rationalist and a bibliophile and author, who compiled some important freethought bibliographies along with other works. Gordon had a huge library, now in the hands of the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York, which includes many books I sourced. He once visited our home and told me that he had collected every edition of Thomas Paine’s freethinking classic The Age of Reason he could get his hands on, as this was the surest way of identifying every publisher sympathetic to freethought.

Other customers and acquaintances included Jim Herrick, David Tribe, Nigel Sinnott and Bill McIlroy (all former Freethinker editors). I have fond memories of them all.

On the purchasing front, I once made a journey to Yorkshire on the strength of a phone call from a vendor of what were once euphemistically called ‘top-shelf magazines’ who had somehow come into possession of some titles containing the word ‘freethought’. He also mentioned some familiar authors’ names to me. It turned out that he had purchased a huge pile of freethought journals, pamphlets, and books, which he had had trouble disposing of—until he contacted me. I will never be entirely clear on how he got hold of the collection, but there was mention of clearing a loft in Stretford, Manchester. We negotiated a price and loaded everything into my Lada Estate (I anxiously watched on as the suspension flattened).  There was a complete run of the Freethinker from the first copy in May 1881 until the 1930s, together with a mountain of pamphlets. From some pencil notes and names on the items it became apparent that I had bought the library of the Manchester branch of the NSS.

I found it impossible to part with everything I handled, hence my large and ever-growing freethought library (not good business practice, I grant). In truth, when I started, I did not really understand the significance of many items. Who would have guessed, for example, that The Fruits of Philosophy and The Elements of Social Science are titles of Victorian birth control pamphlets? However, book dealing is a much better educator than it is a wealth generator, which brings me to the purpose of this introduction. 

Knowledge of freethought literature is not common, even among booksellers, and over the next few months, I shall endeavour to share my observations on some of the books, pamphlets, and journals in my collection. Some description of what they contain will be essential, but it will also be my aim to explain each publication’s historical significance and the events it was associated with, as well as the importance of the author and sometimes also the publisher.

There is only one place to start: with the freethinking hero Thomas Paine (1737-1809).

The Age of Reason

In a recent Freethinker essay, Eoin Carter credits Thomas Paine with writing three ‘era-defining texts’. The first two were Common Sense (1776) and Rights of Man (two parts, 1791-2). The third was The Age of Reason (three parts, 1794, 1795, and 1807), which dealt with his views on religion. Although these views may have been implicit in earlier works, now they were overt and unambiguously stated, with serious implications for the way posterity was to regard its author. The first part was written under the shadow of the Jacobin Reign of Terror while Paine was living in France, having been driven out of England after the publication of Rights of Man. The Age of Reason represents a shift in his revolutionary focus from the hereditary privilege enjoyed by monarchy and aristocracy to what he saw as the related nonsense and tyranny of revealed religion.

My copy of the first part is dated 1794 and acknowledges the printer as Barrois of Paris, with the seller as D.I. Eaton of the Cock and Swine, 74 Newgate Street, London. Considerable mystery surrounds the first 1793 French edition, of which only one incomplete copy survives. The Joel Barlow edition of February 1794 probably also predates the Eaton version. Further confusion stems from Paine’s frequent early textual revisions, but it was the Eaton edition that sold in large numbers and attracted attention. And what attention it got.

Daniel Isaac Eaton (1753-1814) was one of an extraordinary band of radical, freethinking publishers whose courage still astounds. By the end of 1794 the authorities had already unsuccessfully tried to prosecute him for sedition twice. His premises in Newgate Street (now adjacent to St Paul’s Underground station and in the shadow of the Cathedral) were called the Cock and Swine. This was a provocation in itself: the cock represented French republicanism and the swine was an ironic reference to Edmund Burke’s use of the term ‘swinish multitude’ as a descriptor of the general population in his anti-revolutionary Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Eaton also issued halfpenny tokens decorated with images of a cock and swine to be used as currency (see an example here).

Although Eaton avoided imprisonment to begin with, in 1796 he had to flee to America to remain a free man. He returned to England three years later only to have his person and property seized and to be imprisoned for fifteen months. In 1812, he was again imprisoned, this time in Newgate Gaol, which effectively became a university of radicalism with inmates discussing, reading, and even publishing radical works. Part of Eaton’s sentence included his standing in the pillory for an hour a day. This is how his fellow radical William Cobbett described the scene:

‘An immense crowd of people cheered him during the whole hour: some held out biscuits…others held him out glasses of wine, and others little flags of triumph and bunches of flowers. While the executioner and officers of Justice were hooted!’

Cobbett went on to suggest that this backfire led to the end of pillory punishment in London.

Of all Paine’s works, it was The Age of Reason which provoked the most enduring hostility, reaching its apotheosis when Theodore Roosevelt referred to Paine as a ‘filthy little atheist’, all three words of which are inaccurate. As he makes clear at the outset of The Age of Reason, Paine was a deist, not an atheist: ‘I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.’ Nevertheless, his evisceration of organised religion is absolute. He argued that it was ‘set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.’

And then there is the famous short paragraph which, to my mind, says it all, and gets right to the heart of what freethinking means:

‘I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.’ (Emphasis added.)

It is not surprising that The Age of Reason became one of the most prosecuted, if not simply the most prosecuted, works of all time. This repression was successful for a while, and it doubtless reduced the number of copies in circulation. But due to the heroism of a small band of radical publishers, of whom Richard Carlile (1790-1843) is possibly the finest example, it was to become the most famous, or infamous, freethought book ever published. We will hear more about Richard Carlile throughout this series.

There was nothing particularly new about Paine’s criticism of religion. The likes of David Hume and Edward Gibbon had already made their scepticism clear. But they used mannerly language to express themselves and their ideas were politely discussed in fashionable coffeehouses. Paine was groundbreaking in his polemical, militant, witty, and plebian style.  Such a lack of deference and respect shook the aristocratic and religious establishment to its core.

For all the reasons mentioned above, The Age of Reason achieved the status of a seminal work in freethought circles. As Chapman Cohen (1868-1954), second editor of the Freethinker, often remarked, the various editions would fill a good-sized room. The Bradlaughite secularists of the late nineteenth century celebrated Paine’s birthday on 29 January each year at the Old Street Hall of Science in what was a kind of freethinkers’ Christmas. Finally, although he never used the term ‘secularism’, the coining of which awaited George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906), Paine’s conviction that the separation of church and state is a necessary condition for true freedom lies at the very heart of liberal democracy.

Further reading

Image of the week: ‘The world is my country, to do good my religion!’ by Bob Forder

Introducing ‘Paine: A Fantastical Visual Biography’, by Polyp, by Paul Fitzgerald

Freethought and birth control: the untold story of a Victorian book depot, by Bob Forder

Christopher Hitchens and the long afterlife of Thomas Paine, by Daniel James Sharp

‘There is nothing easy or empty about humanity and reason’: in memoriam Jim Herrick (1944–2023), by Bob Forder

From the archive: ‘A House Divided’, by Nigel Sinnott

Image of the week: ‘Wha wants me’, a caricature of Thomas Paine by Isaac Cruikshank (1792), by Daniel James Sharp

The rhythm of Tom Paine’s bones, by Eoin Carter

The post Books From Bob’s Library #1: Introduction and Thomas Paine’s ‘The Age of Reason’ appeared first on The Freethinker.