Paine’s Rights of Man, First French Edition

This is the first French edition, second state, of the first part of Paine’s Rights of Man, with a preface specially written by Paine for this translation.

This edition appeared only two months after the English original; a few copies contain the misprint ‘faux’ for ‘fous’ on p. 162, line 9, but the BNF’s own digitised copy is from this second state, and an error corrected during the print run does not always establish priority of issue.

Publication in London had been delayed owing to the printer’s fear of reprisals, and this French edition, with its new preface, proved enormously influential from the outset. A difficult book to find in totally unsophisticated condition.

Condition & Materials

Droits de l’homme; en réponse a l’attaque de M. Burke sur la Révolution Françoise. […] Traduit de l’Anglois, par F. S[oulès]. Avec des notes et une nouvelle préface de l’auteur. Paris: F. Buisson, Mai 1791. Octavo, untrimmed in near-contemporary paper wrappers (they incorporate printer's waste from what seems to be a critical edition of Voltaire, c. 1820-30); pp. xii, 227.