By R.W. Morrell  

Quite recently I acquired from an antiquarian bookseller a 19th century edition of Paine’s, The Age of Reason. Although described as being in poor condition, the fact of it having been published in Canada intrigued me, for while I have seen many editions of this famous work originating from many lands, I had never seen a Canadian edition.  

In the event when the book eventually reached me I found the  condition to be far better than I had anticipated from the bookseller’s  description. The binding of limp cloth was clearly not original as traces  of a printed cover were evident, so presumably it had been published in  wrappers. However, the fact of these having been removed suggested  these had been discarded by a previous owner because due to their  presumably poor condition.  

On the title page the book’s name is printed in capital letters on two  lines with the initial letters ‘A’ and ‘I? being set in larger sized type. The  author’s name appears as a single line in the centre of the page with the  word ‘By’ immediately above. These are enclosed above and below with  a single line each measuring 23cm., again two sizes of capital letters are  used. At the bottom of the page, once more in capitals, is a single line  reading: W.B. Cook… (&?) M. Scott. This part of the page is damaged,  the section with the dots being rubbed away, though the trace of  another letter appears after the ‘k’ in Cook which might be an ‘e’. I also  suspect Scott had another initial, but what, if any, I cannot say. No place  or year of publication is given.  

Following the title page comes an historically interesting three page  preface, headed in capital letters, `Preface/to the Canadian edition’, the  first word being in larger letters. The preface is signed below its final  paragraph with the initials, W.B.C. on the right, while at the left margin  lower down than the initials, and inset as though to commence a  paragraph, are the words: Toronto, September, 1887, thus providing an  indication of the date of publication and the place of origin. It is  perhaps not without significance that the earliest known freethought  organisation in Canada, the Toronto Freethought Association, was  founded here in 1873.  

The preface is followed by an unrecorded life of Paine occupying  23pp., or at least one unfamiliar to me, and I thought I knew all the English  language lives of Paine. The author of this is not given; perhaps W.B.C.  compiled it, though something about the style suggests to me it may  have been written by Charles Watts, the British freethought publisher and writer, who resided in Toronto from 1882 until 1891.t. As the final  paragraph of the life occupies only about a third of p.28, the publishers,  after having had a decorative printer’s device (the printer is not  identified) used to divide the two, filled the rest of the page with a  twelve line poem headed, ‘Dr. Ladd’s Tribute to Thomas Paine.’ I  assume Dr.Ladd to have been the American poet, Joseph Brown Ladd  (1764-1786), as in a short paragraph prefacing the poem he is is  referred to as ‘a co-temporary of Thomas Paine’. On page 29  (unnumbered) the text proper commences, though Paine’s note  putting his essay under the protection of his ‘fellow citizens of the  United States of America’ is excluded. Both parts of the work are  present as is the so-called third part, An Essay on Dreams.  

In none of the reference works currently available to me can I find  reference to this edition of The Age of Reason. It is not listed by Brown &  Stein (1978), or mentioned in his article on Canadian freethought by  McKillop (1985), who also fails to say anything about the publishers.  They are also ignored by McCabe (1948), although there is nothing  unusual in this as he fails to mention several important freethinkers,  most of the biographical entries relating to them in his Rationalist  Encyclopedia having been lifted directly from his Biographical Dictionary of  Modern Rationalists, published in 1920. It is clear from observations  made in the preface by W.B.C., along with references to other  freethought literature, that he was involved in the Canadian freethought  movement.  

The preface reveals that for more than five years prior to publication  of this edition, the importation into Canada of copies of The Age of  Reason had been prevented by the customs, acting on a complaint by ‘a  single religious zealot in the Toronto Customs’ and ‘the mistaken piety  of the Minister of Customs’. As he knew of no Canadian law under  which anyone publishing Paine’s book could be be prosecuted, more so  as the authorities appear ‘indifferent to all other forms of heresy and  infidelity’, it becomes evident that W.B.C. and his colleague published  their edition of Paine in order not only to make the book available by  circumventing the customs ban, but also to test whether there was  actually a law under which it could be suppressed.  

Although speculative, I strongly suspect this to have been a limited edition and thus scarce, if not rare, which would explain why it has been missed by Paine’s bibliographers and students of Freethought  history. Speculation apart, there is no doubt as to the book’s considerable historical value in so far as the history of freethought, not to mention the fight against censorship. Although I cannot be  absolutely certain of the fact, it may well be that this is the first Canadian edition of The Age of Reason. It would be interesting to hear if others can provide additional information about the book along with  some information about W.B.C. and his associate.  

References:  

1. Brown, Marshall G. & Stein, Gordon. (1978). Freethought in the United  States, A Descriptive Bibliography. Greenwood Press.  
2. McCabe, Joseph. (1948). A Rationalist Encyclopedia. Watts.
3. McKillop, A. Brian. (1985). “Unbelief in English Speaking Canada”. Article in The Encyclopedia of Unbelief Vold. Ed. by Gordon Stein.  Prometheus Books.