We are honored to be this years recipients of the Oscar Lewis Award for outstanding contributions in the field of the Book Arts from the Book Club of California. We received the award at their May meeting in San Francisco.

photo by Stephanie Kimbro Dolin

Thomas Paine is famous for his pamphlet Common Sense and his stirring words in the first issue of the American Crisis pamphlets, which begins “These are the times that try men’s souls.” General Washington thought Paine’s writing important enough to have the whole pamphlet read to all the men under his command.
 
But there is so much more in the writings of Thomas Paine (1737-1809) that is worth revisiting. We have extracted for this edition text from all of his major contributions, not only to the American Revolution, but Paine’s philosophy about freedom and his deep thinking about methods of governance.
 
The acclaimed calligrapher Thomas Ingmire has created six pages of word/art for this edition. His calligraphic art serves as a fitting visual counterpoint to Paine’s extracted texts.