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While much can be debated about the most important literary works in American History, the Library of Congress highlights Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" as one of the definitive "Books That Shaped America" due to its unparalleled role in transforming colonial sentiment from reconciliation to revolution.
Published in January 1776, Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense" delivered a scathing critique of the British monarchy and a passionate argument for American independence. Paine structured his 47-page work into four distinct sections, beginning with an analysis of government as a necessary evil that exists only to curb human vice.
He forcefully rejected the concept of monarchy and hereditary succession, labeling them unnatural institutions that violate human equality and produce corrupt leadership.
Turning his focus to the American colonies, Paine argued that the relationship with Great Britain had reached a point of no return. He claimed that the colonies derived no true economic or security benefits from British rule, which instead dragged them into avoidable European conflicts.
Paine insisted that reconciliation was an impossible dream, urging the colonies to recognize their vast natural resources, build a continental navy, and embrace their historic opportunity to establish a unique democratic republic.
"Common Sense" was written in direct, accessible language for the common citizen, and the pamphlet transformed colonial sentiment and galvanized public support for the American Revolution.
Top 25
Lists of the most important literary classics in American history typically include works that changed the nation's culture, politics and conscience. While the exact list varies by critics, institutions and historians, a selection of these canonical works includes:
1. Common Sense (1776) -- Thomas Paine
2. The Federalist Papers (1787-1788) -- Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
3. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1791) -- Benjamin Franklin
4. The Last of the Mohicans (1826) -- James Fenimore Cooper
5. Nature (1836) -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
6. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) -- Frederick Douglass
7. The Scarlet Letter (1850) -- Nathaniel Hawthorne
8. Moby-Dick (1851) -- Herman Melville
9. Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) -- Harriet Beecher Stowe
10. Walden (1854) -- Henry David Thoreau
11. Leaves of Grass (1855) -- Walt Whitman
12. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) -- Mark Twain
13. The Souls of Black Folk (1903) -- W.E.B. Du Bois
14. The Jungle (1906) -- Upton Sinclair
15. The Great Gatsby (1925) -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
16. The Sun Also Rises (1926) -- Ernest Hemingway
17. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) -- Zora Neale Hurston
18. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) -- John Steinbeck
19. Native Son (1940) -- Richard Wright
20. The Catcher in the Rye (1951) -- J.D. Salinger
21. Invisible Man (1952) -- Ralph Ellison
22. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) -- Harper Lee
23. The Feminine Mystique (1963) -- Betty Friedan
24. Beloved (1987) -- Toni Morrison
25. The Things They Carried (1990) -- Tim O'Brien