Filter results by Type, Volume, Year, Decade, or Category after the first search.
Where to find the printed Conway Edition and the surviving Paine papers. Eleven institutions — six physical, five online.
My working list. Each entry links the institution's catalog page; the holdings line says what's specifically Paine-relevant. Entries marked verified with a date were last checked then; the rest are standing-order knowledge and worth phoning ahead about. Corrections to /contact/.
Washington, D.C., USA
Collection: Rare Book and Special Collections Division; Manuscript Division
First and contemporary editions of *Common Sense* (1776), *The American Crisis* (1776-83), *Rights of Man* (1791-92), and *The Age of Reason* (1794-96). Multiple printings of the Conway four-volume edition (1894-96). Paine-related correspondence in the Jefferson Papers, the Madison Papers, and the Monroe Papers.
Notes: The LCNAF authority record for Paine is n79071358. The Manuscript Division holds the most important institutional holdings of Paine's American correspondence.
New Rochelle, New York, USA
Thomas Paine Cottage Museum on the New Rochelle property the State of New York granted Paine in 1785. Period furnishings, broadsides, the iron-bridge model, the bust by John Wesley Jarvis (1809), and a small reading room of editions and scholarship.
Notes: The cottage is one of two on the original 277-acre grant; the other was demolished in the nineteenth century. Hours seasonal.
Thetford, Norfolk, England
The eighteenth-century stays-maker's house on White Hart Street where Paine was born January 29, 1737. Restored by the Thomas Paine Society UK; period furnishings, contemporary editions, and a small archive of Norfolk-related ephemera.
Notes: Operated by the Thomas Paine Society UK; check the site for current visiting arrangements.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Collection: Benjamin Franklin Papers; American Revolution holdings
Significant Paine correspondence in the Franklin Papers (Paine met Franklin in 1774; their letters of introduction made his American career). Broadsides advertising the Pennsylvania Magazine; first-edition copies of *Common Sense* and the *Crisis* numbers; a small holding of Paine engineering drawings (the iron-arch bridge).
Notes: Founded by Franklin in 1743; the natural archive for the Philadelphia phase of Paine's life.
London, England
First and contemporary editions of every major Paine work in their English printings. Pitt-government surveillance papers in the Home Office records (HO 42 series, partially digitized) document the 1791-92 prosecution of *Rights of Man*; eyewitness contemporary newspaper accounts of the seditious-libel trial in absentia (December 1792) are in the Burney Collection.
New York, New York, USA
Collection: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
Selected Paine manuscripts, autograph letters, and a substantial collection of nineteenth-century reception material -- broadsides, pamphlet replies, abolitionist and freethought reprintings of *The Age of Reason* and *Rights of Man*.
Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Comprehensive holdings of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century American imprints, including multiple printings of *Common Sense*, every issue of the *Pennsylvania Magazine* under Paine's editorship, and an extensive run of contemporary replies to *The Age of Reason*.
Iowa City, Iowa, USA
The Cobbett-Paine bones papers -- correspondence and documents related to William Cobbett's 1819 disinterment of Paine and the long history of the disappeared remains. The single best institutional holding on the bones question.
New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Conway Edition complete sets, *Rights of Man* and *Common Sense* first editions in the Yale Collection of American Literature, and Conway's own working notes for the 1894-96 edition in the Conway Family Papers.
Paris, France
Convention proceedings (Le Moniteur) covering Paine's interventions on the trial of Louis XVI and the constitutional commission. The 1793-94 Luxembourg prison registers. Contemporary French translations of every major Paine work.
Online (consortium)
Full-text scans of the complete Conway Edition (1894-96) contributed by partner libraries -- primarily University of Toronto, Harvard, and Cornell. Useful for verifying this site's transcription against the printed page.
Online (San Francisco, CA)
Public-domain scans of the Conway Edition (writingsthomasp01-04painuoft), all the major standalone editions of *Common Sense* and *Rights of Man*, period engravings and political cartoons, and LibriVox volunteer audio readings of *Common Sense*, *The American Crisis*, *Rights of Man*, and *The Age of Reason*.
Online (volunteer)
Plain-text versions of the most popular Paine works (Common Sense, Crisis, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, Agrarian Justice) and several volume-level releases. The Gutenberg text is volunteer-transcribed; this site's text is independently transcribed and verified against the Conway printed page.
If you've consulted Paine material at an institution not listed here, or if a holding has moved, write the editor through the contact form. Verified additions land here under the institution's name with a date stamp.
The data behind this page lives at src/_data/manuscripts.js in the public repository; pull requests welcome.