Death in the Making. by CAPA, Robert, and Gerda TARO

New York, Covici and Friede, [1938]. Large 4to. Original cloth with illustrated dust-wrappers (not price-clipped); not paginated, 148 photogravure illustrations; wrappers with very few professional marginal repairs from the inside, one or two small areas at the margins re-touched, light rubbing to folds of the wrappers; otherwise an exceptionally clean and fresh copy, rarely encountered in such good condition. First edition, first printing one of the greatest photobooks not only of the period, a reportage on the Spanish Civil War and as a pioneering work in the history of war photography absolutely outstanding. Essays and academic papers have been written about this photobook. Gerda Taro lost her life in its making, crushed beneath the treads of a tank, whilst Robert Capa went on to become one of the most celebrated war photojournalists of the middle of the 20th century and co-founder of Magnum. His life was cut short by a landmine in Indochina in 1954. 'The original book came together during Capa’s first trip to New York, in the fall of 1938. This was just two months after his professional colleague and romantic partner, the German photojournalist Gerda Taro, had died working in Spain. He came to New York to see his brother and mother, but also to renegotiate his relationship with New York photo agencies. In the midst of this, Capa reconnected with his Hungarian friend, André Kertész and American journalist Jay Allen and a book project got off the ground. It was published to modest success, and probably in limited supply, but over the years has become a sort-of underground, cult book … Copies of the original book have become increasingly rare. Ten years ago, you could easily find a copy for less than $50, but now copies go for several hundred dollars, if you can find one at all. And those you could find are often without the dust jacket. Even rarer and even more expensive are original and intact copies' (Cynthia Young in an interview about the Damiani/ICP facsimile of 2020, online).