• 1 • 01PAINE, Thomas. Rights of Man. BOUND WITH: Rights of Man. Part the Second. London, 1791, 1792. Octavo, early speckled calf boards rebacked. $42,000 Extremely rare editions of both parts of Paine’s revolutionary classic Rights of Man. The exceptionally rare and desirable first edition, second issue of Part I, consisting of the text sheets from the famous suppressed and virtually unobtainable first issue printed by Paine’s original publisher, which were rescued by Paine and his friends, and the new title page and preface printed by Paine’s new publisher; bound together with the third edition of Part II “The publishing history of the [first part of Rights of Man] is of interest…. as showing how fragile the right to dissent actually was in those years. Having completed Part One… Paine made haste to take the manuscript to a printer named Joseph Johnson… Johnson was a man of some nerve and principle… but he took fright after several heavy-footed visits from William Pitt’s political police” (Hitchens, 51-52). “Johnson was visited repeatedly by government agents… Fearing the book police, and unnerved by the prospect of arrest and bankruptcy, Johnson suppressed the book on the very day of its scheduled publication… Paine reacted fast. He agreed to a deal with another publisher, J.S. Jordan on Fleet Street, and with the help of friends and a horse and cart delivered to him Johnson’s printed, unbound sheets… He then packed his trunk for Paris, where he planned to arrange a French translation… Prior to leaving, Paine passed on several bound copies of the original Johnson edition into private hands, but only a few of these have survived” (Keane, 304-5). Jordan took Johnson’s unbound sheets of the text and added a new title page with Jordan’s imprint and a preface that Paine sent him from Paris. Jordan published his edition (this first edition, second issue) on March 13, 1791, and it sold out in hours. It’s not known how many copies of this issue Jordan published using Johnson’s sheets, but it was likely only in the hundreds of copies. “Not even Paine could have imagined… that Rights of Man was destined to become one of the bestselling books in the history of publishing… Rights of Man broke every extant publishing record…. Rights of Man sold over 50,000 copies in under three months. While Paine’s claim that sales of the complete edition in Britain reached ‘between four and five hundred thousand’ copies within ten years of publication might well be exaggerated… its impact was indisputably phenomenal” (Grogan, 18). The British government decided against prosecuting Paine for sedition shortly after the publication of Part I, but in 1792, after the publication of the more incendiary Part II and the rapid spread of both parts, the British government took action against Paine, his publishers and booksellers. “Bookshops selling Rights of Man were visited and harassed by agents of the book police, and sometimes arrested, prosecuted, fined, or imprisoned.” Jordan was arrested in May 1792 and pleaded guilty, and many “booksellers were imprisoned, some for as long as for two years, for selling Rights of Man” (St. Clair, 624). The first issue of Part I (with Johnson’s title page imprint) is so rare it is considered virtually unacquirable; this is the earliest obtainable edition. Third edition of Part the Second, stated on title page. A few early ink marginalia in Part II. Only very light occasional foxing to Part I. A handsomely bound copy in fine condition. "THE CLEAREST OF ALL EXPOSITIONS OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY" (PMM)
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