Deals Rights of Man ~ Thomas Paine ~ 1979, Easton Press, Full Leather, Moiré Endpapers, Illustrations ~ Near New

Rights of Man

By Thomas Paine

Introduction by Howard Fast

Illustrations by Lynd Ward

The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written

COLLECTOR'S EDITION

Bound in Genuine Leather

1979, The Easton Press
Norwalk, Connecticut

Sewn binding. Blue leather over boards with gilt decoration on front and back and design and lettering on spine. Integral ribbon marker sewn in. Four spine hubs. All edges of leaves gilt. Moiré endpapers. 11.5", 269 pages, publisher's preface, introduction, table of contents, author's notes, illustrations, includes an unattached, unmarked Easton Press Bookplate (see last image)

Near New condition. A solid, clean copy. Integral ribbon bookmark undisturbed. A little rubbing of the gilt on the front edge.

From the Publisher's Preface

In May of 1792, an English pamphleteer who lived in America for twenty-three years was indicted in London for treason to His majesty's government. Before he could be tried, the poet William Blake sped him out of England to France. There the pamphleteer took a seat in the French Convention, to which he had been elected by admires of his revolutionary writings. But he was soon thrown into prison, and barely escaped the guillotine.

The pamphleteer was Thomas Paine, whose indictment for treason was brought about by a book he published deals in London in February of 1792: the second part of "The Rights of Man." Both this and the first part, which had been issued in March of 1791, had enjoyed an enormous circulation, but the book's inflammatory thesis led to unsuccessful endeavors by the British government to suppress it.

"The Rights of Man" was Paine's answer to Member of parliament Edmund Burke's aristocratic, anti-democratic "Reflections on the revolution in France" (1790). Thomas Paine's book affirms the principle of majority rule, declares that the goal of the state is freedom, and asserts that happiness is the natural right of all men. Principles such as these might have been expected from the man who was living in America at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In fact his powerful pamphlet, "Common Sense", published in January of 1776, marked the start of the open movement for American independence. Washington said that it "worked a powerful change in the minds of many men."

Tom Paine was in America from 1774 to 1787; he returned to the United States in 1802, and died in N.Y., in 1809.

BEP