Audiobook · read by volunteers
Common Sense
Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
Read by Gary Gilberd · 7 chapters · 2 h 02
About the book
In January 1776, an anonymous pamphlet appeared in Philadelphia and began to change minds across the American colonies. Common Sense argued, in plain and often fiery words, that the colonies should not seek to patch up their quarrel with Britain but should declare independence. Thomas Paine attacked the idea of monarchy and of hereditary rule, described government as a necessary evil and made a practical case for self-rule. Its language was written for ordinary readers, not for scholars, and it spread at astonishing speed. Gary Gilberd reads the seven sections in about two hours, and the force of the writing, with its short, direct sentences, is easy to feel today. Few short texts have had such a large effect on events.
Introduction
Thomas Paine was born in England in 1737 and died in 1809 in New York. He worked as a corset-maker, a tax officer and a teacher before emigrating to the American colonies in 1774 at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin. Common Sense was published on 10 January 1776, without his name on the title page. Within a few months an enormous number of copies had been printed, and it became the best-selling work of its age in America.
The pamphlet has a simple structure. Paine first discusses the origin and purpose of government, and then turns to the British constitution, to monarchy and to the nature of the quarrel with the mother country. He ends with a practical look at America's ability to defend itself. His argument is moral and political, and he mixes appeals to reason with a plainly spoken contempt for tradition for its own sake. It helped to prepare the ground for the Declaration of Independence in July of that year.
This LibriVox recording lasts about two hours and is divided into 7 sections, including an introduction and a preface. It is read by one volunteer, Gary Gilberd. Paine's later works, such as The Rights of Man, carried his ideas to Europe, but this short text is where it all began.
Paine's prose is a model of clarity: short sentences, strong images and a refusal to hide behind elegant phrases. Even now, the text conveys the excitement of a moment when the future of a continent was open, and it shows how a few pages can move a public.
Public domain
Thomas Paine died in 1809: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text