Woodstock Observer, 30 Oct. 1827, p. 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers. Accessed 15 Aug. 2026.
An Extract from Isaiah Thomas’ History of Printing
The Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum
This Magazine was first published in January, 1775, by Robert Aitken. The celebrated Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, &c. was one of the principal compilers and writers of the Museum. It was a work of merit; each number contained forty-eight pages, octavo, with an engraving. The war put a period to its existence.
Aitken contracted with Paine to furnish, monthly, for this work, a certain quantity of original matter; but he often found it difficult to prevail on Paine to comply with his engagement.
On one of the occasions, when Paine had neglected to supply the materials for the Magazine, within a short time of the day of publication, Aitken went to his lodgings, and complained of his neglecting to fulfil his contract. Paine heard him patiently, and coolly answered, “You shall have them in time.” Aitken expressed some doubts on the subject, and insisted on Paine’s accompanying him and proceeding immediately to business, as the workmen were waiting for copy. He accordingly went home with Aitken, and was soon seated at the table with the necessary apparatus, which always included a glass, and a decanter of brandy. Aitken observed, “he would never write without that.” The first glass put him in a vein of thinking; Aitken feared the second would disqualify him, or render him untractable; but it only illuminated his intellectual eyes; and when he had swallowed the third glass, he wrote with great rapidity, intelligence and precision; and his ideas appeared to flow faster than he could commit them to paper. What he penned from the inspiration of the brandy, was perfectly fit for the press without alteration or correction.*
Note – Aitken was a man of truth, and of an irreproachable character. This anecdote came from him some years before his death.