Historedia
EuropeEvent

Publication of Rights of Man by Thomas Paine

When
1791
Where
London publishing house of Joseph Johnson; London, place of first publication; London publication context; England, site of the controversy and trial
Episodes
6

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, first published in London in 1791, defended the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Its initial printing was withdrawn over prosecution fears before appearing in March 1791, using subdued rhetoric that stopped short of condoning uprising against the British monarchy, and sparking a major pamphlet controversy.

Episodes

  1. 1791 onward · England, site of the controversy and trialImpact and conviction for seditious libel

    The book damaged Burke's case and caused a furore; Paine was convicted of seditious libel in absentia while in France.

  2. 21 February 1791 · London publishing house of Joseph JohnsonWithdrawn first printing

    Joseph Johnson printed Rights of Man for publication on 21 February 1791, but the edition was withdrawn for fear of prosecution.

  3. March 1791 · London, place of first publicationPublication of the first part

    Rights of Man, the first part of Paine's reply to Burke, was published in London in March 1791, containing 31 articles.

  4. March 1791 · London publication contextA reply to Burke's Reflections

    The book defended the French Revolution against Burke's 1790 attack, countering his case for aristocratic inheritance of power.

  5. March 1791 · London publication contextArguments on rights and revolution

    Paine argued that revolution is permissible when natural rights are unprotected, treating the Bastille as the symbol of overthrown despotism.

  6. March 1791 · London publication contextSubdued rhetoric on the British monarchy

    Paine did not directly condone uprising against the British monarchy, using more subdued rhetoric than in his other controversial works.

Background and detail

Background. Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) attacked the French Revolution, arguing that stability required the poor majority to be governed by wealthy aristocrats and that inherited power properly belonged to the nobility. The work appealed strongly to the landed class and sold 30,000 copies. Paine, a strong supporter of the Revolution that began in 1789, wrote Rights of Man in reply.

Publication in London. Paine's Rights of Man was printed by the London publisher Joseph Johnson for release on 21 February 1791, but the printing was withdrawn for fear of prosecution. The book was published in Britain in two parts, in March 1791 and February 1792; the first part comprised 31 articles.

Arguments of the Book. Paine posited that popular political revolution is permissible when a government fails to safeguard the natural rights of its people—liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression—with the nation as the source of all sovereignty. He defended the Revolution as an attack on despotic principles rather than the king himself, taking the Bastille as the symbol of overthrown despotism, and traced monarchy not from 1688 but from 1066.

Reception and Aftermath. Of the more than 300 pamphlets spawned by the revolution controversy, Rights of Man was the first to seriously damage Burke's case and restore credit to the French in Britain and America. Its publication caused a furore in England; Paine was tried in absentia and convicted of seditious libel against the Crown, with Sir Archibald Macdonald as prosecutor, but he was in France and never returned to England.

People involved

Sources

  1. Rights of Man Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-07

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.