Thomas Paine (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
Thomas Paine was the son of Frances Cocke and Joseph Paine. After grammar school, at the age of thirteen, he was apprenticed in his Quaker father’s trade as a corset maker until he left home at nineteen. After that he was briefly a privateer, a schoolmaster, a grocer, and a tobacconist. He also worked as an exciseman to patrol the coastline against smugglers; during this time he was twice discharged, the second time from lobbying at Parliament for higher salaries for excisemen. He was twice married, first, to Mary Lambert, who died within a year of their marriage in 1759, and then in...
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