By January 20 Bell was advertising a “new edition” in press, which likely means that the first printing had already sold out. This first printing consisted of 1000 copies, with profits to be split evenly between the author and publisher. Wake Forest’s copy of Common Sense is Bell’s third edition, published in February 1776.Ĭommon Sense was first published on January 9, 1776. So he contracted with Philadelphia printer Robert Bell to publish the work. Paine had originally intended Common Sense to appear in newspapers in several installments, but he realized that his argument was more convincing when taken as a whole. Benjamin Rush suggested the title Common Sense. Paine wrote a response to the king’s pronouncement, for which his friend Dr. In October 1775 King George III gave a speech to Parliament in which he declared that the American colonies were in rebellion against the crown and therefore subject to military intervention. So it comes as no surprise that he was an immediate and vocal supporter of American independence. Paine loved controversy, hated the British aristocracy, and was devoted to the Enlightenment ideal of individual liberty. In 1774 he emigrated to Philadelphia, where he soon took on the job of editing Robert Aitken’s radical new monthly newspaper, the Pennsylvania Magazine. His formal education ended when he was 12 years old, after which he pursued various occupations without great success. Thomas Paine was born to a Quaker family of modest means in Norfolk, England in 1737. Paine’s pamphlet was certainly popular and influential in revolutionary America, but the real story of Common Sense‘s creation, dissemination, and reception is less straightforward– and perhaps more interesting– than the myth. As one historian puts it “ Common Sense swept the country like a prairie fire,” and “as a direct result of this overwhelming distribution, the Declaration of Independence was unanimously ratified on July 4, 1776.”
Paine often gets credit for more or less single-handedly galvanizing the reluctant colonists to commit to the war of independence. Thomas Paine’s 79-page pamphlet has achieved a mythic status in the history of the American Revolution.
Arms as the last resource decide the contest the appeal was the choice of the King, and the Continent has accepted the challenge. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America.
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