The Rights of Man Parts I & II, Common Sense, and Paine’s Letters.

PAINE, Thomas.

Item Number: 82408

London: J. S. Jordan, Fleet Street; J. Ridgway, York Street; H.D Symonds, Paternoster Row, 1795-1792.

Attractively bound early set including founding father Thomas Paine’s best-known and most influential works. Titles include in full: Rights of Man: Being An Answer To Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution, Part I (1795); Rights of Man; Part The Second Combining Principle and Practice (1792); Common Sense Addressed to the Inhabitants of America (1792); Letter Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation (1792). Octavo, five volumes, uniformly bound by early Boston binder J. Loring in contemporary calf, gilt titles and tooling to the spine, red morocco spine labels, engraved frontispiece portrait of Paine. In very good condition with some light toning to the text. From the library of Joshua Loring, Jr. with his library stamps. Loring, Jr. served as the high-sheriff in Suffolk County, Massachusetts and was Commissary General of American prisoners-of-war in New York from 1777 until 1783. An attractive and desirable collection with noted provenance.

One of the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Paine authored two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, which ultimately inspired the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Virtually every American rebel read Paine’s powerful pamphlet Common Sense which crystallized the American Revolution and demand for independence from Britain. John Adams asserted "without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."