Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

Boston: Thomas Hall, 1794. Two parts in one volume (with: Part the Second; New York: Mott & Lyon, for Fellows & Adam and J. Reid, 1796). First American editions. 8vo. Illustrated with a wood-engraved head-piece in part one. Full modern calf; light occasional toning and spotting. Provenance: [illegible]cester Theological Seminary Library (stamp on title-page, pencil notations on verso). ESTC W31697 and W31705; Evans 27458 and 30941; Gimbel/Yale 89

Exceedingly rare first American editions of parts one and two of Paine's The Age of Reason. Variously branded the "Devil's Prayer Book" and the "Atheist's Bible," Paine’s controversial and landmark work is a bold defense of deism and a scathing critique of organized religion, particularly Christianity. In part one, written while Paine was imprisoned awaiting the guillotine in France during the Revolution, he affirms belief in a single God and the importance of reason, but rejects revealed religion, miracles, and the divine authority of the Bible, which he views as a human-made text full of inconsistencies. In part two, written after his release, he expands on these arguments with detailed textual analysis of both the Old and New Testaments, seeking to expose contradictions and questioning their moral teachings. Paine’s central message is that religion should be based on rational inquiry and observation of the natural world, not on dogma, priestly authority, or scripture.

The British government considered the work dangerously subversive, and authorities soon banned it. Booksellers and printers who circulated it were prosecuted; some were imprisoned for blasphemy and sedition. In the United States, where Paine had been celebrated for his revolutionary writings, the reception was mixed—his attack on Christianity alienated many former admirers. 

The publication history of Part I of Age of Reason is rather complicated, and a definitive priority has not been fully determined, but all early editions in English are extremely desirable. In March 1794 the work was published in Paris in English (by Barrois) and in French (by Gueffier). The first edition in English is likely Barrois's 77-page Paris edition, and a 55-page edition with a joint imprint (printed in Paris by Barrois and sold in London by D.L. Eaton) is probably the first London edition. While Gimbel notes that the New York issue of the first part was the first in America, Evans identifies Hall's 1794 Boston edition as the first American edition. Gimbal prioritized the New York edition because John Fellows copyrighted it on June 17, 1794, under the 1790 copyright law claiming it to be the first, but that action does not speak to which (Boston or New York) was actually first published. For Part II, Paine had 15,000 copies in English printed in Paris, to be sent to Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia in September 1795. Their arrival was delayed until April 1796 by which time it had been reprinted in America from a London edition.