Melville House Books

The divorce papers of Tom Paine

It all started when the new proprietor of a jewelry shop in Hastings, England, was cleaning out the basement and found a box of books. Opening up “an early copy of an 18th century novel” by Tobias Smollet, out fell an old document which, unfolded, turned out to be Tom Paine‘s divorce papers.

According to a Guardian report by Maev Kennedy, the Smollet novel is believed to have belonged to Paine’s wife, Elizabeth, and the document discovered therein formerly separated husband and wife, “whereas certain unhappy Quarrels and dissensions have arisen.” It also provided that Elizabeth could keep money she had inherited from her father, but had to hand over £45 she had in cash; in return, Paine had to agree that he “shall not nor wil at any time hereafter slander or defame his said wife.”

The unemployed Paine immediately used the money to buy a ticket to America, and, as Kennedy notes, “the rest was history.”

This week, the long-lost document has been returned to the town of Lewes, England, “the town where Paine worked as a customs officer, and married his publican landlord’s daughter, Elizabeth Ollive,” and which has a Paine festival every summer. It was purchased from the jeweler (unnamed in the report) by the Lewes town council and other donors — including, as Kennedy notes, “Appropriately, given the importance of drink and taverns in Paine’s time in the town, the local Harvey’s brewery.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.