The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
By Richard Briles Moriarty
Many resources purport to provide biographical information about Thomas Paine. Some resources intentionally, at times maliciously, contain definitive statements that are contrary to available evidence or otherwise demonstrably untrue. Others do so unintentionally often by relying on misstatements in prior resources that even cursory research would disclose to be groundless.
The best means for determining reliable information about Thomas Paine (or any other historical figure) is to critically and skeptically examine multiple sources, hew to evidence, and avoid urges to connect unconnectable dots. Original sources should be sought out when available. No matter how often a false statement appears, or how prominent the author may be, the statement remains false.
This is an attempt to compile biographical resources through which Paine researchers may access multiple resources. Each citation is hyperlinked, where possible, to the cited resource. The state of accessibility of each hyperlink when this compilation was created is noted in parentheses after the hyperlink. Resources that focus exclusively on Paine’s writings or his influence without any biographical information are not included.
The cited resources encompass the good, the bad and the ugly. No effort is made to judge or report the relative value or reliability of those sources, which are instead listed in alphabetical order. To minimize broken links resulting from multi-line URLs, all hyperlinks are in tinyurl.org format. Should a hyperlink not work, internet searches using the other information provided will hopefully succeed. A work in progress, the intent is to periodically update this compilation with additional sources. This version was completed on March 6, 2025.