Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British

Dickinson, John, 1732-1808Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0

Word count: 277K words
Chapters: 28

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the BritishAuthor: Dickinson, John, 1732-1808,Language: English, Class: E201: History: America: Revolution (1775-1783), Release Date: Oct 14, 2014

Editor's review

This volume collects the twelve letters John Dickinson published under the pen name "A Farmer in Pennsylvania." They are a key body of political essays from the period of the North American colonies' resistance to British taxation. Written in plain, forceful English, the letters argue over colonial rights, parliamentary sovereignty, and the relationship between the colonies and the British constitution. Their reasoning is clear and their tone restrained, and they circulated widely at the time. For readers studying the origins of the American Revolution, colonial political thought, and the Anglo-American constitutional debate, this is a primary text of both historical and literary value. The free Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and cite, making it suitable for classroom discussion and essay writing. Readers should note the features of the epistolary form and eighteenth-century political vocabulary, and are advised to understand the argument in light of the tax laws passed on the eve of the Revolution rather than reducing it, out of context, to a general political manifesto.

Who it's for

A good fit for

History readers studying the origins of the American Revolution and colonial political thought
English majors studying the Anglo-American constitutional debate and the essay genre
Teachers who need public-domain primary texts for classroom discussion or citation
English-language readers interested in eighteenth-century epistolary political writing

Not a good fit for

General history enthusiasts who are not comfortable with English and expect a Chinese translation
Readers hoping for narrative history rather than political essays
Those without background knowledge of the colonial period who might mistake the text for modern political propaganda

Reading tips

First learn about the British tax laws imposed on the colonies in the 1760s, then read the letters one by one.
Read the letters in order and note how the author gradually develops his argument for colonial rights.
Mark recurring constitutional concepts such as representation and parliamentary sovereignty as you read, to make comparison easier.
Read alongside other pre-Revolutionary political essays to observe the different authors' argumentative strategies.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Why did the author sign these letters as a "farmer"?

Using the pen name "A Farmer in Pennsylvania" was a rhetorical strategy: by adopting the identity of an ordinary farmer, the author strengthened his persuasiveness and showed that opposition to British tax policy was not the preserve of elites but concerned the shared rights of colonial inhabitants.

Is this book suitable as an introductory text on the history of the American Revolution?

It can serve as a supplementary reader, but not as the only introduction. The letters were written in response to specific tax laws and constitutional disputes and do not lay out the sequence of events. Readers are advised to first read general histories to understand the overall background on the eve of the Revolution, then turn to the primary text.

What preparation in English is needed to read it?

The text is eighteenth-century English political writing, with long sentences and somewhat classical diction, but its argument is on the whole clear. Readers need to get used to the epistolary style and the political terminology of the time; when encountering constitutional concepts, they can consult background materials and need not read word by word.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Dickinson, John, 1732-1808 Author · American · 1732–1808

John Dickinson (1732–1808) was an American Founding Father, statesman, and political writer. His life spanned the crucial years from the North American colonies' movement toward independence to the early days of the new republic. His best-known work, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British, is written in epistolary form and adopts the voice of a farmer to discuss the rights and duties of colonial inhabitants under British rule. Its plain yet persuasive style won it a wide readership on the eve of the independence movement, and it helped shape colonial public opinion. One work by him is held in this collection. Public information on his education, official posts, and specific political activities is limited, so no conjecture is offered here. His writing is chiefly political argument, marked by reasoned analysis and a practical, debating edge.