Common Sense
Paine, and the Letter of Introduction, 1774–1776
THOMAS Paine came to Philadelphia in November 1774 carrying a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin — the second such letter in this collection to change a life, after the one that sent Rush to Edinburgh. Fourteen months later, on January 10, 1776, he published Common Sense, and the argument that had been about taxation and representation became an argument about monarchy. It sold, by Paine's own count, a hundred and twenty thousand copies in three months. Washington had it read to the troops. Rush, who had suggested the title, was its first reader.
The Writings of Thomas Paine … Including Common Sense, The Crisis, and Rights of Man
Nine of Paine's works, each with its own title page, bound together in contemporary calf: Common Sense, the thirteen numbers of The Crisis — the scarce first collected American edition, five of the numbers having appeared before only in newspapers — Public Good, the letter to the Abbé Raynal, and both parts of Rights of Man. 'These are the times that try men's souls' was written for Washington's retreating army in December 1776 and read to them on the Delaware.