[Americana] (Paine, Thomas, et al.) Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America…

Rare 1776 Philadelphia Editions of “Common Sense”, “Large Additions to Common Sense”, and Their Principal Loyalist Reply, “Plain Truth”

(Paine, Thomas)
Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America…
Philadelphia: Printed, and Sold, by R. Bell, 1776. Mixed edition*. 8vo. (iv), 79, (1) pp. From the library of New York lawyer and Continental Congressman Peter W. Yates (1747-1826), and with his signature on front free endpaper. Contemporary quarter brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards, red morocco spine label, stamped in gilt, front board starting, headcap expertly repaired, extremities, boards, and corners rubbed and worn; all edges trimmed; title-page and pp. 31/32 sometime expertly supplied in facsimile; two additional near-contemporary ownership signatures on front free endpaper; dampstaining to prelims; small chipping along edge of title-page; light dampstaining in bottom corner and fore-edge of most leaves; rear free endpaper excised, contemporary rear blank supplied, possibly from an old repair. Gimbel CS2-4; Adams, American Independence 222a-c, The American Controversy 76-107a; Howes P-17; Sabin 58211 and 58214; Evans 14964; Reese, The Revolutionary Hundred 36

Bound with:

(Paine, Thomas, et al.)
Large Additions to Common Sense…
Philadelphia: Printed, and Sold, by R. Bell, 1776. First edition (with first issue sheets and with second issue title-page). 8vo. (ii), (81)-147, (1) pp. Spotting to title-page, small chip in top corner of same; light dampstaining in bottom corner of several leaves; scattered, mostly marginal light foxing to text. Gimbel CS-5 and 6; Adams, American Independence 223a; Sabin 58212; Hildeburn, Pennsylvania 3439; Evans 14964

Bound with:

(Chalmers, James)
Plain Truth; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America, Containing, Remarks on a Late Pamphlet, entitled Common Sense…Written by Candidus
Philadelphia: Printed, and Sold, by R. Bell, 1776. First edition, first state. (viii), 84, (2) pp. (including Bell’s “The Printer to the Public” leaf); with “To The Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec” at rear, (6) pp. (see Gimbel, p. 120). Scattered, mostly light, foxing to text. Gimbel CS-207; Adams, American Independence 208a, The American Controversy 76-19a, and The Authorship and Printing of “Plain Truth” by “Candidus”; Evans 15088; Sabin 84642; Hildeburn, Pennsylvania 3345

A collection of three rare 1776 Philadelphia editions in a contemporary binding: Thomas Paine’s iconic revolutionary pamphlet, Common Sense, "one of the few indisputably most influential American books," for which, "Paine succeeded in providing the popular political reasoning and philosophy for the American Revolution" (Streeter), bound together with a scarce first edition of the pamphlet’s principal Loyalist reply, Plain Truth, as well as publisher Robert Bell’s pirated supplement to Common Sense, Large Additions to Common Sense.

Paine drafted Common Sense through the summer and fall of 1775. At the suggestion of Paine’s friend Benjamin Rush, Philadelphia printer Robert Bell agreed to publish it, and the first edition was released on January 9, 1776, in an edition of 1,000 copies. It was an immediate success, with demand so high that within days a second edition was needed to satisfy the public’s enthusiasm. Prior to publication, Bell and Paine agreed to split the profits evenly (each copy selling at a pricey 2 shillings), with Paine on the hook in the event of any losses. Paine pledged to donate his share to the patriot cause, then reeling from disaster in Canada, but when he sought his share, Bell, incredibly, informed him that there was none. Acting through an intermediary to protect his identity, an infuriated Paine broke ties with Bell and hired rival Philadelphia printers, William and Thomas Bradford, to publish a new and enlarged edition. Over the next month a public squabble ensued within the pages of the Pennsylvania Evening Post between Bell and the two parties over their now competing editions of what was America’s first bestseller.

Bell advertised his now unauthorized second edition as having been published on January 27, and hinted at the identity of the anonymous author by printing “Written By an Englishman” on the title-page. The eagerly awaited authorized Bradford edition was published two weeks later, on February 14. Seeking to capitalize on the Bradford edition, Bell then pirated sections of their added material, and with additions of his own culled from other writers, published on February 20, Large Additions to Common Sense. Only two of the pamphlets' six tracts were actually by Paine, the “Appendix” and “Address to the Quakers.” Bell sold Large Additions as a separate pamphlet, included it with earlier editions of his Common Sense, and later printed it in a combined edition released a few weeks later.

The competing editions satiated a wild demand in Philadelphia, and when Paine gave authority to other printers across the colonies to publish it, it “swept the country like a prairie fire.” (Gimbel, p. 57). By the end of the year over 150,000 copies had sold, and it went through 19 editions in the colonies and seven in Great Britain. Common Sense “isolated the fears and angers of the average colonist and focused them into a strategy for the future, its impact was tenfold for the men who would face charges of treason as the American founding fathers. Common Sense would lead directly to the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, and among the United Colonies’ elite now in favor of separation from Britain Paine was both a celebrity and a sage.” (Craig Nelson, Thomas Paine, p. 93).

For many American colonists, independence was a dangerous and foolish idea that held the possibility of destroying their way of life. On March 13, 1775, only a few weeks following the Bradford and Bell quarrel, Bell published the principal Loyalist reply to Common Sense that echoed those sentiments, an anonymous pamphlet entitled Plain Truth. Thomas R. Adams notes that at various times the work has been attributed to William Smith, George Chalmers, Charles Inglis, Richard Wells, Joseph Galloway and Alexander Hamilton, but concludes that the work was likely by wealthy Maryland planter James Chalmers. Chalmers offered a point by point rebuttal of Paine’s text, and argued that independence was a fantasy that would harm the colonies, especially in relation to trade, while leaving them open to invasion from France and Spain. As Adams explains, “In undertaking the publication of the pamphlet, Robert Bell must have anticipated trouble…and seems to have been ready for further attacks. On the first page of all editions of Plain Truth appears his essay, ‘The Printer to the Public on the Freedom of the Press.’...he pleaded for the right to present both sides of the question,” but by putting his name to a pamphlet such as Plain Truth, he “would evoke the wrath of a very vocal part of the population.” (p. 235, The Authorship and Printing of “Plain Truth” by “Candidus”)

*First edition, second issue: Signature B, p. 7: “dependent”; E, p. 31: second paragraph, last line begins “the”; K, p. 71, line 10: “to lose,”. First edition, second issue or Second edition: I, p. 63, line 13: “pidling po-“; L, p. 80: “three volumes”. Second edition: C, p. 15, line 7: “none,”; F, p. 40, line 10: “ill-judged”; G, p. 44, line 6: “and child.” Second or third edition: D, p. 21, line 3: “ours forever.” Unrecorded variant: Signature H: p. 54, 3rd line from bottom, “.—“

Provenance
Private Collection, Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania