Description
Reissue of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans, published in 1960.
Octavo, xxii 471pp. Black cloth, title in silver on spine. Original publication date of 1941 noted on copyright page. Solid text block, light rubbing to cloth, light foxing to endpapers. Previous ownership note on the front free endpaper. In the publisher’s dust jacket, $6.50 retail price on front flap, light rubbing along edges, a very good example. Includes 31 reproductions of Walter Evans’ photographs at the front. (Roth, 108-109)
This project, a landmark collaboration between author James Agee and photographer Walker Evans, was originally funded by Fortune Magazine in 1936. The article looked to detail the experience of sharecroppers throughout the American South during the Great Depression. Following the eight weeks Agee and Evans spent on location in Alabama, Fortune editors rejected the somber photos and harrowing notes. The magazine granted the pair permission to take the book elsewhere, and then Let Us Now Praise Famous Men was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1941.
