28) Life of Thomas Paine,

London 1839 / New York 1892

Linton’s biography of the most influential and popular exponent of British radicalism was a result of his critical examination of Thomas Carlyle’s French Revolution: A History (1837). He wrote it to compensate his publisher James Watson for his selfless commitment in the editing of The National: „Settling with him, I noticed that he had not charged for folding the weekly sheets, or for folding and stitching a considerable number of monthly parts, the circulation having been much more than I had reason to expect, though not covering cost. No! he told me, he had been sure that I could only be a loser by the publication; and he and his wife had ‘done the whole of the work,’ a generous service not to be forgotten. In return I wrote for him a Life of Paine, which for a number of years had a continuous sale.“