Richard Boston
In Search of Lost Bones
The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine
By Paul Collins
Bloomsbury 278pp £12.99 order from our bookshop
It’s not always easy to make head or tail of this book, which is fair enough since it’s the tale of a head – a skull to be precise – and a few other bones. At least that is what is suggested by the title and subtitle of the book, though for much of the time it might just as well be a story about a cock and a bull, or about the hunting of a Snark.
When the skeleton in question was on active service it belonged to Tom Paine, who was born to a Quaker family in Norfolk in 1737 and died in New York in 1809. Between those dates he produced numerous pamphlets and books. In Rights of Man he
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'There are at least two dozen members of the House of Commons today whose names I cannot read without laughing because I know what poseurs and place-seekers they are.'
From the archive, Christopher Hitchens on the Oxford Union.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/mother-of-unions
Chuffed to be on the Curiosity Pill 2020 round-up for my @Lit_Review piece on swimming, which I cannot wait to get back to after 10+ months away https://literaryreview.co.uk/different-strokes https://twitter.com/RNGCrit/status/1351922254687383553
'The authors do not shrink from spelling out the scale of the killings when the Rhodesians made long-distance raids on guerrilla camps in Mozambique and Zambia.'
Xan Smiley on how Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/what-the-secret-agent-saw