Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
- Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941. First edition. Fine/Near Fine. A Fine copy of the book in a Near Fine dust jacket. Jacket with a scratch on the front panel, slight rubbing to the spine and spine ends and very slight fading to the spine, but much less than typically encountered.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is the surprisingly striking product of a Fortune Magazine collaboration between photographer, Walker Evans, and writer, James Agee, in 1936. For four weeks they lived, worked alongside, and earned the trust of desolately impoverished sharecropping families in Alabama. Originally envisioned as a short article on sharecroppers in the Deep South amidst the reforms of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, Agee and Walker expanded the work considerably. Emotionally driven by the poverty they experienced, Agee and Walker crafted a fictionalized account of three families incorporating Evans’ powerful images. Despite a lukewarm initial reception, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men was brought to national attention by the social justice movements of the 1960s and has remained an important work of southern literature and an innovative collaborative work. Fine in Near Fine dust jacket.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is the surprisingly striking product of a Fortune Magazine collaboration between photographer, Walker Evans, and writer, James Agee, in 1936. For four weeks they lived, worked alongside, and earned the trust of desolately impoverished sharecropping families in Alabama. Originally envisioned as a short article on sharecroppers in the Deep South amidst the reforms of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, Agee and Walker expanded the work considerably. Emotionally driven by the poverty they experienced, Agee and Walker crafted a fictionalized account of three families incorporating Evans’ powerful images. Despite a lukewarm initial reception, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men was brought to national attention by the social justice movements of the 1960s and has remained an important work of southern literature and an innovative collaborative work. Fine in Near Fine dust jacket.