LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN; THREE TENANT FAMILIES.
Agee, James [James Rufus Agee], 1909-1955; Walker Evans, 1903-1975 (photographer).
Language: English
Published by Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, [1980]., 1973
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: David Hallinan, Bookseller, Columbus, MS, U.S.A.David Hallinan, Bookseller
AbeBooks seller since March 23, 1998
Condition: Used
US$ 40.00
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Reprint (post-1980). [1-64], i-xxii, 1-471 pages. Hardcover: H 22cm x L 14.75cm. Gray dust jacket with minor soiling; light toning to spine; some bumping. nicks, and short tears at edges; slender bands of toning at flap margins; front flap retains publisher's printed price at top right. Black cloth with vibrant silver stamped spine lettering. Interior pages are bright and clean. Binding remains crisp. A fine copy in a very good dust jacket. Classic book first published in 1941 in which Agee and Evans document white sharecropper families in rural late 1930s Alabama. The book's sixty-four page introductory section features b/w photographs by Walker Evans. In a brilliantly innovative blend of literature and journalism, Harvard-educated James Agee records and comments on the plight of Great Depression-era sharecropper families in the American South (specifically in Hale and Tuscaloosa counties of west central Alabama). Although receiving minimal praise upon its 1941 publication, LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN is now lauded as a classic text in American literature and photojournalism. ISBN 0395073308.…
Seller Inventory # Z626X-9499
- Title
- LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN; THREE TENANT FAMILIES.
- Author
- Agee, James [James Rufus Agee], 1909-1955; Walker Evans, 1903-1975 (photographer).
- Publisher
- Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, [1980].
- Publication year
- 1973
- Dust jacket
- Dust Jacket Included
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0395073308
- ISBN 13
- 9780395073308
- Seller catalogs
- Americana-Alabama
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
Assigned to do a story for Fortune magazine about sharecroppers in the Deep South, Agee and Evans spent four weeks living with a poor white tenant family, winning the Burroughs's trust and immersing themselves in a sharecropper's daily existence. Given a first draft of the resulting article, the editors at Fortune quite understandably threw up their hands--as did several other editors who subsequently worked with a later book-length manuscript. The writing was contrary. It refused to accommodate itself to the reader, and at times it positively bristled with hostility. (What other book could take Marx as the epigraph and then announce: "These words are quoted here to mislead those who will be misled by them"?) Response to the book was puzzled or unfriendly, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sputtered out of print only a few short years after its publication. It took the 1960s, and a vogue for social justice, to bring Agee's masterwork the audience it deserved.
Yet the book is far more interesting--aesthetically and morally--than the sort of guilty-liberal tract for which it is often mistaken. On an existential level, Agee's text is a deeply felt examination of what it means to suffer, to struggle to live in spite of suffering. On a personal level, it is the painful, beautifully written portrait of one man's obsession. In its collaboration with Evans's photographs, the book is also a groundbreaking experiment in form. In the end, however, it is more than merely the sum of its parts. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is, quite simply, a book unlike any other, simmering with anger and beauty and mystery. --Mary Park
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
David Hallinan, Bookseller
Columbus, MS, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since March 23, 1998
Shipping rates within U.S.A.
| Item | 4 to 12 business days | 3 to 10 business days |
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| First item | US$ 7.50 | US$ 22.50 |
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DAVID HALLINAN, BOOKSELLER - specializing in out-of-print, uncommon, and scarce books in all subjects. Mailing address is PO BOX 463, COLUMBUS, MS 39703. Inventory available for inspection at a local antique mall generally from 10am-5pm Tuesday thru Saturday.
Specialty
First Edition Literature, WPA - Work Projects Administration, Military History, Southern Americana, Decorative Arts, American History, Architecture and Urban Planning, General AntiquarianSeller's business information
David Hallinan, Bookseller
MS, U.S.A.
Terms of sale
DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL VISA AND MASTERCARD ORDERS ARE ACCEPTED FOR ALL ITEMS VIA ADVANCED BOOK EXCHANGE'S SHOPPING BASKET. Payment is also gladly accepted via US$ checks or money orders sent to our store address or via PayPal (we no longer process credit cards ourselves). Domestic U.S. orders mostly shipped via Post Office Media Mail or Priority Mail with UPS and FedEx considered for large/heavy folios, multi-volume sets, and particularly valuable books. Digital images of most items are available upon request. Books are returnable within seven days after receipt but please notify by email or phone first. All items listed are subject to prior sale. Mailing address is PO Box 463, Columbus, MS 39703. Email: DavidHallinan@yahoo.com. Phone: (662) 425-1687. With advance notice (1-2 days) inventory can be shown/left/picked-up at a Columbus, Mississippi antique mall.
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