Citizen Tom Paine

New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. [10], 341, [1] pages. Inscribed on fep by the author. DJ is in a plastic sleeve. DJ has wear, tears, soiling and chips. Howard Melvin Fast (November 11, 1914 – March 12, 2003) was an American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E. V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson. Fast is the author of the prominent "Why the Fifth Amendment?" essay. This essay explains in detail the purpose of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Fast spent World War II working with the United States Office of War Information, writing for Voice of America. In 1943, he joined the Communist Party USA and in 1950, he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities; in his testimony, he refused to disclose the names of contributors and he was given a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While he was at Mill Point Federal Prison, Fast began writing his most famous work, Spartacus, a novel about an uprising among Roman slaves. Blacklisted by major publishing houses, Fast was forced to publish the novel himself. It was a success, going through seven printings in the first four months of publication. He subsequently established the Blue Heron Press, which allowed him to continue publishing under his own name throughout the period of his blacklisting. Just as the production of the film version of Spartacus is considered a milestone in the breaking of the Hollywood blacklist, the reissue of Fast's novel by Crown Publishers in 1958 effectively ended his own blacklisting within the publishing industry. Derived from a Kirkus review: This book results in an unforgettable picture of the man, an even to those near and dear to him, his own worst enemy at every phase of his tragic life. The story ranges back and forth, so that -- bit by bit -- the story drops into place. His childhood and adolescence were scarred by poverty. He developed a bitter sense of class distinctions, by hatred of the way things were. Then the chance for a new world, made possible by Benjamin Franklin. However again he experience disillusionness and reviling, and failure. He was set on the path to to edit a liberal journal, and would follow it to his death. He was a voice foreseeing a people ahead of their inclinations into the path of revolutions -- crying independence in his Common Sense speaking to and through and for the common man, and heartening the soldiers when everything else failed. Jefferson, and others, felt his power. But none could save him. He returned to his native England -- until The Rights of Man forced him out of England, and into Revolutionary France. But even there, his brand of Revolution resulted in his spending months in jail. Though grown old, he faced down Napoleon and his generals in council. He died, as he had lived, in poverty and disrepute--his grave today is unknown. It is an extraordinary tale -- Howard Fast has made it good reading. There is in it such that should be a spur today. Condition: Good / Fair.

Keywords: Fiction, American Revolution, Thomas Paine, Propagandist, Common Sense, Napoleon Bonaparte, Crisis Management

[Book #80710]

Price: $45.00

See all items by