I have a new hero: Richard Carlile, who was tried and imprisoned for publishing Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason.
Even in 1819, court records were privileged, meaning they were public records that could be legally published.
Carlile recited the full text of The Age of Reason, claiming it was essential to his legal defense. He hoped that the work would then become part of the transcript of the trial, which could then be legally published.
Sadly, the ingenious idea didn’t work, says Sarah Bakewell, who tells the story in her new history of humanism and humanists.
Bakewell says that when Richard went to prison, his wife, Jane, took up the publishing business. When she went to prison, Richard’s sister Mary Ann took up the business. They ended up in the same cell, and I actually have three new heroes, not one.
Perhaps families that stand for human rights together stick together.
• Source: Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible; New York: Penguin Press, 2023, pp. 184-5. For another note on this delightful book, see “The Donation of Constantine,” May 16, 2023.
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