Joel Moody

Joel Moody was a 19th-century writer remembered chiefly for Junius Unmasked; or, Thomas Paine the Author of the Letters of Junius and the Declaration of Independence. Project Gutenberg lists him as Joel Moody (1834–1914) and attributes that work to him.

The book shows the kind of subject that drew him in: big historical puzzles, bold claims, and close reading of political writing. In Junius Unmasked, he argued that Thomas Paine was the hidden author behind the famous Junius letters, a theory that gives his writing an energetic, investigative quality even for modern readers.

Reliable biographical details about his life are scarce in the sources I could confirm here, so it is safest to remember him as an author of historical argument rather than to overstate the facts of his personal story.