WITH NOTES THROUGHOUT

The Life of Thomas Paine, Author of Common Sense.

New-York: Printed by Southwick and Pelsue, 1809.

Price: $600.00


About the item

First edition. xxii, 347 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. WITH NOTES THROUGHOUT. Contemporary calf, neatly rebacked. Shaw & Shoemaker 17193; Howes C336.

Item #213087

First edition of this account by Paine's most malicious biographer. Cheetham had met Paine in 1803 and was a great admirer at first, often printing Paine's articles in his newspaper the American Citizen. But the men soon grew apart, the irreconcilable split apparently
occasioned by Cheetham's excessive editing of one of Paine's articles. Paine never published in Cheetham's paper again and the two exchanged fierce insults in print for years, Cheetham having the last word with this vicious biography, published upon Paine's death in 1809. His ad hominem attacks include charges of infidelity, habitual drunkenness, and atrocious personal hygiene
Signed on the title page by J.P. Moseley of Yale and the U.S. Congress with note opposite of whom he was. These notes also identify the comments copiously written out in the text as by Alexander Lord, a revolutionary soldier. He villifies Cheetham in his comments.