Myth: Within months of its publication, 120,000 copies (or 100,000 or 150,000 or 500,000) of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense were sold in the rebellious colonies. Busted: Although the pamphlet circulated widely and certainly made its mark, only scant print records and no sales records survive, so we simply do not know how many copies were … Continue reading Thomas Paine’s Inflated Numbers