New Masses, Signed (2 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Included. 1st Edition. Octavo (8 1/8 x 5 1/2 inches; 218 x 140 mm), 318 pages, in red boards, gilt titles to spine, in an illustrated, unclipped dust jacket. INSCRIBED by Joseph North, the editor, on the front end paper to artist Raphael Soyer and his wife Rebecca: "You were inspirers of this book. With love, Joe North." Inscribed and dated in the year of publication. A nice association: Soyer was a socialist realist artist who taught at the John Reed Club, the New School for Social Research, and the Art Students' League. The book consists of fiction, reportage, and essays from the pages of New Masses, a left-wing literary magazine that was published from 1926-1948. With work by Ernest Hemingway, Muriel Rukeyser, Theodore Dreiser, James Agee, Kenneth Patchen, John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Federico Garcia Lorca (translated by Langston Hughes), Mike Gold, and Henri Barbuse, among many others. Numerous drawings and cartoons by Bill Gropper, John Groth, Gardner Rea, Mischa Richter, and others. Prologue by Joseph North and Introduction by Maxwell Geismar. Signed or inscribed copies of the book are quite scarce in commerce. CONDITION: Spine crease, severe bump to the lower edge of the rear board, soiling to top edge but internally clean and bright. The unclipped dust jacket has a corner tear to the lower front flap. a small nick to the upper front flap, small chip to the upper rear panel, and some soiling. Very Good overall. Signed by Author(s).

No Binding. Condition: Good. In this one-page typed letter signed, Freeman provides publisher Henry Hart with citations for the three quotes from Greek and Roman classics he had made when they had last met. The names of the professors of these translations are: Charles Theophilus Murphy, Kevin Guinagh and Whitney Jennings. The quotes, we gather, are about a "defense of the democratic idea," "the clash between power and right, slavery and freedom," and "Cicero's remarks on power, ethics, etc." Typed on 11" x 8 ½" ivory bond paper and dated June 28, 1947 and signed "Joe". Joseph Freeman (1897-1965) was an American writer, journalist and founding editor of The New Masses (1926)  and the Partisan Review (1934). He also wrote for The Nation, Fortune, and Life. At various points in his life he was a member of the Workers Party of America and the Communist Party, as well as, an employee of the American Civil Liberties Union. Henry Hart was an American writer (Dr. Barnes of Merion, 1963) and publisher who worked as Publicity Director for Scribner's Sons, Editor-in-chief of Putnam's Sons, an Associate Editor of Time and Fortune, the founding member and first editor of Films in Review and a founding member of Equinox Cooperative Press. He edited the American Writer's Congress (1935) and was responsible for the English-translation publications of Thomas Mann's works. Condition: The letter has toned mailing fold lines and some notes in ink on the verso along the top margin. Generally good condition. Signed by Author(s).