The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine (Hardcover)

by Paul Collins (Author)
Key Phrases: earth closets, corn merchant, Thomas Paine, New York, Tom Paine (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
These are the times that try men's... bones? In this quixotic, mischievous and often hilarious work, Collins (Sixpence House) traces the bizarre story of Thomas Paine's remains through nearly two centuries of American and English history. After Paine's death in 1809, the iconoclastic reformer was refused burial in any Christian cemetery and was laid to rest ignominiously on his New York farm with only six people in attendance. Ten years later, a follower exhumed the remains and took them to England, where they were passed about for decades while various individuals harvested this or that relic for their private collections. More than a history of Paine's body, Collins offers an entertaining and compelling investigation of his legacy; Paine's example continued to animate all kinds of reformers throughout the 19th century, from feminists and spiritualists to phrenologists and physicians. Indeed, Paine's artifacts had a kind of Forrest Gump quality, bumping into many of the celebrated causes, writers and agitators of the day. Part travelogue, part memoir and part historical mystery, this book reads like a wry, witty novel and offers a delicious twist at the end. (Oct.)
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From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–Despite the popularity of his revolutionary essay Common Sense, Paine was scorned as a rebel constantly searching for a cause. When he died in 1809, no church would bury him in its cemetery, leaving his remains to be interred on his own farm. A few years later, William Cobbett, an Englishman and revolutionary in his own right, dug up the body with plans to bury it beneath a monument to be built in London. That never happened. Over the next century, those who were most influenced by his writings sought to give him a proper burial, but ultimately his remains were lost. Some names, like Thomas Edison, will be familiar. Others, like Dr. Foote, a self-help author, will not be, but provide interesting color. Paines spirit eventually influenced a number of movements, touching on everything from feminism to the Thirteen Club (its sole function–mocking every superstition imaginable). The author does a great job of tying disparate threads together and leading them back to Paine. He intersperses the history with travel narratives detailing his own search for the remains. These sections not only showcase the unusual turns research can take, but also bring a unique sense of pacing to a history book. Highly readable and filled with enough witty anecdotes to entertain people who dont normally read history, this book is a reminder that history surrounds and influences us every day of our lives.–Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1st U. S. Edition edition (October 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582345023
• ISBN-13: 978-1582345024
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #598,479 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Common Sense Approach to Enjoying Political Philosophy, October 25, 2005

By	busmun (Carrboro, NC United States) - See all my reviews

Paul Collins knows how to have fun with old books and he passes that madcap glee onto you, the reader. Consider his advice for securing privacy on mass transit,"It is a fact that if you want to be left alone on the subway, all you need to do is read a really beat-up old book.... You think I am joking--- but try it sometime.
I root through my backpack and pull out of my bag the shabbiest, oldest-looking book imaginable. Its covers were once a pleasant marbled green, but now worn down to a barklike wooden color; every single page inside is water-stained brown. It appears to have been left at the bottom of a pond, then dragged behind a cart, and finally thrown off a high cliff."
It's not often that you come upon a tome whose subject, history of political philosophy, has you laughing out loud at least once every couple of chapters. It's history, writ with wit, very enjoyable.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Odd and Satisfying Read, December 20, 2005

By	Cranky Old Librarian (Iowa, USA) - See all my reviews

I won't admit just how far I was into this book before I realized the title's a play on Hitchcock's movie "The Trouble With Harry." But it's a fitting tribute: like a Hitchcock movie, it's a twisting tale filled with rogues, oddballs, humor and even a McGuffin in the form of Tom Paine's body, which gets scattered in every direction possible.

Paine himself only appears briefly though memorably before shuffling off his mortal coil. It's not a biography of Paine, which is fine because there's plenty of those already. It's something more unusual: a meditation on how one man's ideas carry on in unexpected ways long after he is gone. Collins has a whole cast of colorful and forgotten 19th century firebrands who were so inspired by Paine's work that some even had to possess a relic of their favorite rebel. There's also delightful cameos by greats like Darwin, Twain, and Whitman.

Virtually all the history and anecdotes in this book were new to me. It's as if the author was determined to write something that didn't cover any of the same ground as anyone else, and the result is both ambitious and playful.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not all who wander are lost: An exhilarating, fascinating diagonal trip through history., May 21, 2006

By	Elizabeth A. Root (Laurel, MD USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This very readable book put me in mind of James Burke's wonderful Connections, but centers around the mortal remains and intellectual legacy of Thomas Paine. I love the usual sort of history, but these "diagonal" journeys, going off in strange directions, really help pull history together and illuminate the oddities that are usually left out. Whether or not we arrive at any definite place, the trip is well worth it. Looking at history as a purposeful march from there to here leaves out so many fascinating might-have-beens. We so often end up looking at earlier times merely as a prelude to ours, not seeing the perspective of earler generations as their chaotic, multi-sided struggle for their own present and future.

This is not for everyone: I find that many of my favorite books are lambasted by reviewers outraged that the author has not given us a clear and definitive answer to the identity of Shakespeare or Perkin Warbeck, the guilt of Lizzie Borden, the fate of the Princes in the Tower, but rather has tossed about ideas and possibilities. Perhaps it is too scary to contemplate that there may never be a final answers. This is not a biography of Paine, it begins with his final, ailing years and death. It is not for those who want a crisp, linear narrative.

Paul Collins jumps between past and present as he tracks his subjects. This is a risky strategy, and I was often surprised to find myself in another era. On the whole, I think it worked very well - it created a vivid impression of the layers of history and the disappearance of the past. In some ways, it is a metaphor for history writing: conjuring what no longer exists.

Collins moves around England and America trying to resolve the mystery of the fate of Paine's body. At the same time, he traces Paine as seen by later generations: the "author" of a posthumous autobiography, whose publisher employed John Brown before he went to Kansas and thence to Harper's Ferry. Along the way, Collins tells us about formerly famous people who are at best footnotes in our time; the invention of the indoor toilet; the function of the rag-and-bone man; a corpse as property; and a great deal about phrenology. This last topic is developed sympathetically at great length, stressing its original purpose as an aid to self-improvement.

The reader who is not familiar with Paine should at least read a good encyclopedia article, but a full biography is probably not necesary.

A mind-bending and thought-provoking book. The book is not really scholarly, that is, discussions of ideologies are informative but not in depth. In lieu of a bibliography or notes, the author has sections discussing the sources for each chapter, often imparting more fascinating tidbits along the way. An index would have been nice.

For those who like the juggling of ideas and possibilities, I recommend Who Wrote Shakespeare? by John F. Michell, The Perfect Prince by Anne Wroe, Forty Whacks by David Kent and Royal Blood by Bertram Fields.