Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine was born in 1737 in Thetford, Norfolk, England, the son of a stay-maker, who made corsets. At thirteen he was apprenticed to his father and later worked at several jobs, including as an excise officer. In 1774, with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, he emigrated to Philadelphia. In January 1776 he published Common Sense, a pamphlet arguing in plain language that the American colonies should break away from Britain. It was read widely and helped turn opinion toward independence. During the Revolutionary War he wrote a series of pamphlets called The American Crisis, which began, 'These are the times that try men's souls'; George Washington had it read to his troops. He later went to Europe, where he defended the French Revolution in Rights of Man (1791). He was elected to the French National Convention, but in 1793 he was arrested and held in the Luxembourg Prison in Paris. His book The Age of Reason, which criticised organised religion from the point of view of deism, made him many enemies. He returned to America in 1802 and died in New York City in 1809.

Thomas Paine is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: His Age of Reason became a popular deist text. Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy