Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941.. [2],xvi,471pp, with 31 full-page plates from photographs. Octavo. Black cloth, spine lettered in silver. A couple spots of mild finger-soiling on the front free endsheet, otherwise a very good or better copy in very good dust jacket with flap price intact and a modest amount of sunning and slight fraying at crown and toe of the spine panel. First edition of this central work in the history of 20th century photo-documentary. After he graduated from Harvard, Agee was hired by Time Inc, and wrote for FORTUNE from 1932 to 1937. In 1936, on assignment for the magazine, Agee and Evans (who was then working with the FSA) traveled to southern Alabama where, for eight weeks, they documented via interview and photographs the Depression-era hardships of the daily lives of three families of sharecroppers. In the end, FORTUNE did not publish their article, largely due to Agee's resistance to FORTUNE's editors demands for substantial cuts. Harper & Brothers, who had contracted for book publication following its appearance in FORTUNE, backed out over similar issues. Agee and Evans developed the material further and it was accepted for publication in book form by Houghton Mifflin. The first (and for many years, only) printing consisted of 2416 copies, of which only 600 copies were sold before it was remaindered. It would take another two decades before Houghton Mifflin published another clothbound printing, with an expanded group of photographs. It is now a work considered "by many as the epitome of the genre ... pushing the boundaries of the way in which documentary should treat the world" - Parr & Badger, THE PHOTOBOOK A HISTORY, volume one. In 2005, it was selected for publication in the Library of America. PARR & BADGER I:144.

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Bookseller: William Reese Company - Literature ABAA-ILAB (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #: WRCLIT88937
Title: LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN
Author: Agee, James, and Walker Evans [photographs]
Book Condition: Used
Quantity Available: 1
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Place of Publication: Boston
Date Published: 1941.

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William Reese Company - Literature ABAA-ILAB

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William Reese Company - Literature ABAA-ILAB

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About William Reese Company - Literature ABAA-ILAB

Since 1975, William Reese Company has served a large international clientele of collectors and private and public institutions in the acquisition of rare books and manuscripts and in collection development.

With a catalogued inventory of over thirty thousand items, and a general inventory of over sixty-five thousand items, we are among the leading specialists in the fields of Americana and world travel, and maintain a large and eclectic inventory of literary first editions and antiquarian books of the 18th through 20th centuries.

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Glossary

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

First Edition: In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
Octavo: Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
Jacket: Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
Spine: The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
Cloth: "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...