AN AMERICAN TESTAMENT - A NARRATIVE OF REBELS AND ROMANTICS [Left Book Club edition]

First edition - Victor Gollancz Left Book Club edition - 'not for sale to the public.' ***A very good copy in the standard LBC salmon-pink paper-covered thin boards, with black titles. The covers are quite clean with just some light marks and rubbing commensurate with age and handling. The front board has some light vertical creasing, but there are no tears, just some slight fraying and creasing at the corners. Edges slightly creased and rubbed. The fragile paper covering is slightly faded on the spine, but the spine is tight with no tears. Some darkening to the top edge of the page block. Internally the book is also very good with no inscriptions. The pages are clean, with none of the usual foxing to the preliminary and last pages. No creases or tears. The paper stock has tanned over the decades due to the cheap paper stock that Victor Gollancz publications were noted for. There is slight splitting at the gutter at the title page, but the binding is holding. No dustwrapper as issued. ***576 pages. 225mm x 144mm. ***Contents: Preface, BOOK ONE - Chapter I. A Vanished Village, II. The Golden Realm, III. Guides for the Perplexed, IV. Apocalypse, V. Saviours in Cap and Gown, VI. The Triumph of Life, VII. Time and Eternity, VIII. Dialogues Across the Sea. BOOK TWO - Chapter I. Against the Stream, II. The Happy Island, III. The Party, IV. Idealists, V. The Strange 'Twenties, VI. The New Masses, VII. Greta. BOOK THREE - Chapter I. Expedition, II. New Found Land, III. Hedda, IV. Eisenstein's Holy Grail, V. Turning Points. ***'This narrative is rooted in the belief that mankind is passing through a major transformation. The dissolution of capitalism compares in scope and significance with the origins of private property, the beginnings of Christianity, the ascendancy of the bourgeoisie. It is my conviction that socialism will effect much greater and more salutary changes in the life of man than any of the great historic turning points which preceded it. ***'Joseph Freeman (1897-1965) was an American writer and magazine editor. He is best remembered as an editor of The New Masses, a literary and artistic magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA, and as a founding editor of the magazine Partisan Review. He was born Oct 7, 1897, in the village of Piratin, part of the Poltava district in the Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian empire. Freeman's parents, Stella and Isaac Freeman, were of ethnic Jewish extraction, forced to live in the Pale of Settlement by the anti-semitic laws of the Tsarist regime. His parents worked as shopkeepers. Along with hundreds of thousands of others fleeing ethnic violence in Russia, the Freemans emigrated to the United States in 1904. Joseph was naturalized as a US citizen in 1920. In the new world, they managed to achieve a middle class existence in Brooklyn, New York. Freeman became a member of the Workers Party of America, forerunner of the Communist Party USA during this interval. He was subsequently active in various mass organizations of the party, including the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born and the All-America Anti-Imperialist League. In 1926, Freeman became a co-founder and a founding editor of The New Masses magazine. He was also a founding editor of the magazine Partisan Review in 1934, a publication which touted itself as "A Bi-Monthly of Revolutionary Literature Published by the John Reed Club of New York."'' [Wiki] ***A first edition published by Victor Gollancz in a Left Book Club edition, in very good original condition. These books were mass-produced using quite cheap materials, and few of them have survived in collectable condition. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc. …