We remember Paine now, as radicals did in the nineteenth century, because he was distinctive — there have been few, if any, English political figures whose republicanism has been so strident and yet who have managed to communicate such a radical ideology (in an English context) to such a wide audience.
Thomas Paine is far less well known as a poet. This article seeks to place him in the tradition of English Radical Poetry and compare his work with some of his contemporaries and some of those who came after him.
We thank Paul Myles for the transcript of this important letter, now in the British Library, from the government agent J. Mason, to J.B. Surges. an under secretary for foreign affairs, which demolishes the constantly repeated mantra of Paine having fled the country to escape arrest.
Paine had very enlarged ideas of the rights of others and was, upon principle, a thorough friend to the civil and religious liberties of all mankind. In conversation he was open and liberal, and at the same time serious and instructive.
Young Thomas Paine, Wesleyan Methodist Or Rational Dissenter? Read Post »
Contested Sites deserves a wide readership. It contains much I found new and it has prompted me to wonder what other radical monuments lurk forgotten around the country and also what might be said to constitute one.
It seems that pattern-making began not as the science it is today, but as an art form, with formulated pattern-drafting systems not originating until the nineteenth century. It is likely that the creators of eighteenth-century stays draped or sculpted pattern pieces directly on the body, possibly never making paper patterns.
Eighteenth-Century Stays: Their Origins and Creators Read Post »
Royle attempts to answer the question why there was no revolution? He looks at the nature of the popular movements arguing that their leaders knew both their own limits and those of their followers. He further argues that the revolutionaries were always in the minority.
BOOK REVIEW: Revolutionary Britannia? Reflections On The Threat Of Revolution In Britain Read Post »
When Paine resided at Lewes he was a member of a bowls club which used to meet at a green in the castle grounds, it was following one such game that having retired for punch and a discussion on politics, Paine conceived the idea for his Rights of Man.
A Sporting Paine, Or Was Thomas Paine A Cricketer? Read Post »
Paine’s ideas about his own national consciousness evolved from this time onward in ways that paralleled the way in which Americans were thinking about themselves. In 1776, he understood that a true national consciousness had to move beyond politics and constitution making.
Following the publication of The Age of Reason, Thomas must have come to regard Paine as a infidel – and already as someone whom he regarded as having ruined his sister’s life and embarrassed his own. When Elizabeth died, the obituary he drafted gave vent to his venom regarding Paine.
This short essay is unquestionably a major contribution to Paine studies, though likely on the controversial side in that it casts Paine in a role few of his admirers would have thought possible, for it is the belief of the author that Paine was ‘an undercover agent’ for George III.
BOOK REVIEW: Thomas Paine: The Case Of The King Of England And His Officers Of Excise Read Post »
The traditional way of looking at Paine as an Enlightenment political propagandist or as a Newtonian Deist is not explicit enough to distinguish him from others. Nor do these descriptions of Paine enable one to explain why Paine appeals to such a variety of radical, liberal and even conservative causes.
