Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Agee, James; Evans, Walker. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1941.
Price: US$500.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Review Copy. Good, lacking the jacket. Blue cloth, toned at the spine and edges, tidemark on the bottom of the front board. Square and firmly bound, bookplate inside the front board, "Jul 28 41" stamped on the front endpaper which has some rippling at the bottom portion, publisher's review slip laid-in, clean otherwise. The classic work of journalism and photography coming as the result of a summer assignment to "discover and disclose the actual daily lives of typical sharecropper families in the South" in 1936.
Seller: Carpetbagger Books, Woodstock, IL, U.S.A.
Price: US$650.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941. First Edition. Octavo. 471 pp. 31 black and white photographs bound at front of volume. Black cloth stamped in silver. Lacks dust jacket. Boards edgeworn with brief exposure and minor fraying to extremities and joints; additional small nick to front board with a small white spot at bottom edge; general scuffing and spotting; spine rubbed and a touch faded. Binding is sound and pages clean and unmarked.
Seller: Capitol Hill Books, ABAA, Washington, DC, U.S.A.
Agee, James and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1941.
Price: US$750.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 31 unnumbered full page photos by Walker Evans, xvi, 471p. Original black cloth. dj. 21 cm. Jacket scuffing, age-toning and edge-wear,with chipping at ends of backstrip panel. Cover dulled with some modest spotting. Small brownstain at top of three text leaves which is visible when the book is closed. "In the summer of 1936, Agee and Evans went to Alabama to portray in words and photographs the daily life of three typical tenant families." [from the text on the front flap of jacket].
Seller: McBlain Books, ABAA, Hamden, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$900.00 + shipping
Description: From the library of Julian Beck and Judith Malina, founders of The Living Theatre in New York and Paris, and lifelong partners in an open marriage. An except from Malina's diary, March 14, 1953 about James Agee: "An extraordinary stranger - dark-maned, ponderous - enters the Remo, I point him out and ask around "Who's that?" He has a snarling look, as though long ago abandoned by fate - to remorse-laden anger and anguished compassion. Someone says, 'James agee." And the animal cry of 'A Mother's Tale,' and the transcendent poetry of "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" - is what I remark in this handsome face. I begged Julian to introduce me, for he had once met him, but that was years ago, and he was shy to approach him. Agee had several drinks. Julian was still talking to Frank O'Hara / stray child of the Muses / when Agee left. feeling thwarted and seething, I went off to Wshington Square, to thoughts of past, present and future. Of the future: I want Jim Agee to be my lover." And he was. (added when published). The book was signed upon acquisition by Julian Beck on 6/25/45. On some later date, presumably after the affair, it was additionally signed on a different page by Judith Malina who drew a heart next to her signature. BOOK IS VERY GOOD++ --- A SOLID COPY WITH MINOR WEAR AT SPINE ENDS, TIGHT BINDING, STRAIGHT CORNERS. PHOTOS FRIMLY BOUND IN AND CLEAN, AS IS TEXT. THERE IS A POOR DUST JACKET WITH IT - $5.00 PRICE, CHIPS AT TOP, BOTTOM AND FLAP FOLDS, SOILING TO REAR PANEL, REAR FLAP SEPARATED.
Seller: MARK POST, BOOKSELLER, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$1000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First printing with 31 full-page black/white photographic plates by Evans to front. Full black cloth with a dustjacket (wrapped in mylar) priced $3.50. Silver lettering to spine. Minor foxing and toning to endpapers. Loses to tail/head of dustjacket and top of front (see image). A nice clean copy with no previous owners' names or other defacements. 6 x 8.5 in
Seller: William Chrisant & Sons, ABAA, ILAB. IOBA, ABA, Ephemera Society, Fort Lauderdale, FL, U.S.A.
Agee, James; Evans, Walker. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1941.
Price: US$2250.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition, first printing. Very Good, in a Good price-clipped dust jacket. Ding to top edge, scuff to front board and spot of wear to rear. Bookseller label to rear pastedown. The jacket shows several vertical creases, sunning and edge wear to the spine, and a large chip to the top of the rear panel with associated tears and tape repairs to the verso. Rare in the dust jacket.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Price: US$2620.00 + shipping
Description: First edition. Near fine in an about very good, somewhat spine-faded dustwrapper with some internal tape removed, a couple of seamless professional mends, and a couple of small chips. Issued in a small edition, an extended essay on rural poverty with arresting images by Evans. Aside from its place in literary history, the Walker Evans images have made it something of an iconic volume for students of photography. Parr and Badger, *The Photobook Volume 1*, p.144; Roth, *The Book of 101 Books*, p. 108-109.
Seller: Biblioctopus, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$2749.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First Printing of this tour de force of American photography and perennial classic of American journalism, a "highly experimental book, pushing the boundaries of the way documentary should treat the world." (Lionel Trilling, in the Kenyon Review, called it the "most important moral effort of our American generation.") Demy 8vo (205 x 144mm): [2],xvi,471,[1]pp, with 31 beautifully printed black & white full-page photographs by Walker Evans, "his only excursion into 'true' documentaryâ"among the finest ever made." (Parr & Badger) Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in silver; illustrated dust jacket, priced $3.50. A Fine copy, tightly bound and clean throughout; Near Fine or better jacket, head and toe of spine panel rubbed, with short tear and crease to bottom of front panel. A fresh, honest copy with no restoration. Parr & Badger I, p.144. Roth (101 Books), p. 108-09. In July and August of 1936, Agee and Walker Evans traveled to the American South to research a story on sharecropping for Fortune magazine. Their assignment, according to Agee's Preface, was to produce a "photographic and verbal record of the daily living and environment of an average white family of tenant farmers." Throughout the book, "Agee writes with extraordinary moral passion and highly personal emotion. He considers the tenant families victims of a massive system of human injustice that is global in proportions. . . . In questioning his purposes, including the difficulty of ever really seeing into the heart of another, especially of those as different as the sharecroppers, Agee raises important questions about the aesthetic limitations of the literature of social consciousness that comprised a major genre in the 1930s and early 1940s. . . . The design of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men reflects the fierce independence and eccentricity of its youthful author. Book One consists of only three pages: a single page 'Preface' and two pages listing the 'Persons and Places' in the book. Book Two, over 400 pages in length, is divided into an elaborate 'Design,' including its own 'Preamble'; sections on tenant clothing, shelter, education, and work; an 'Intermission'; and other narrative, poetic, autobiographical and confessional passages. . . . The tour de force of this section, however, and perhaps of the book as a whole, is a short section on 'Overalls'. . . . In the 'delicate beauty' that the overalls take on with age and wear, Agee finds an appropriate image to represent the lives of the tenants as a whole." (Literary Encyclopedia) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).
Seller: Fine Editions Ltd, Lancaster, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$2750.00 + shipping
Description: First edition. Illustrated with 31 haunting black-and-white photographs by Evans. ".a violent and beautiful book; a supremely moving picture of one stratum of American life and of the effect of this life on two sensitive observers."-from the dust jacket flap. 8vo silver-stamped black cloth boards; 471 pages. Pages 37-43, which were inexplicably excised from this copy, professionally replaced using leaves from a later printing (pages are slightly whiter), otherwise near fine with slight darkening along inner hinges, small bookseller ticket of Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco, to rear pastedown, and touch of inconspicuous foxing to page fore edges; in near fine, slightly spine-toned dust jacket with professional removal of tape and repair to a few small chips.
Seller: Quill & Brush, member ABAA, Middletown, MD, U.S.A.
Price: US$2850.00 + shipping
Description: [2],xvi,471pp, with 31 full-page plates from photographs. Octavo. Black cloth, spine lettered in silver. A couple spots of mild finger-soiling on the front free endsheet, otherwise a very good or better copy in very good dust jacket with flap price intact and a modest amount of sunning and slight fraying at crown and toe of the spine panel. First edition of this central work in the history of 20th century photo-documentary. After he graduated from Harvard, Agee was hired by Time Inc, and wrote for FORTUNE from 1932 to 1937. In 1936, on assignment for the magazine, Agee and Evans (who was then working with the FSA) traveled to southern Alabama where, for eight weeks, they documented via interview and photographs the Depression-era hardships of the daily lives of three families of sharecroppers. In the end, FORTUNE did not publish their article, largely due to Agee's resistance to FORTUNE's editors demands for substantial cuts. Harper & Brothers, who had contracted for book publication following its appearance in FORTUNE, backed out over similar issues. Agee and Evans developed the material further and it was accepted for publication in book form by Houghton Mifflin. The first (and for many years, only) printing consisted of 2416 copies, of which only 600 copies were sold before it was remaindered. It would take another two decades before Houghton Mifflin published another clothbound printing, with an expanded group of photographs. It is now a work considered "by many as the epitome of the genre . pushing the boundaries of the way in which documentary should treat the world" - Parr & Badger, THE PHOTOBOOK A HISTORY, volume one. In 2005, it was selected for publication in the Library of America. PARR & BADGER I:144.
Seller: William Reese Company - Literature, ABAA, New Haven, CT, U.S.A.
Agee, James (Walker Evans). Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Houghton Mifflin Boston 1941, 1941.
Price: US$2850.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First edition hardback in dust jacket of one of the most important books in American photography and journalism. With 31 beautifully printed photographs by Walker Evans. Octavo, original black cloth lettered in silver. Book is in near fine condition - tight and clean. Just slight edge wear to spine ends and former owner name. Dust jacket is in near fine condition with expert professional restoration to seams and edges. Not price-clipped. Spine slightly sun-faded, as always. An impressive copy.
Seller: Different Drummer Books, Niantic, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$3025.00 + shipping
Description: First edition, 8vo (205 x 138 mm, 8 x 5½ in); black-and-white photographs printed in relief halftone, toning to edges, occasional minor marks; plain endpapers, light toning from flaps, black cloth-covered boards, titles stamped on spine in silver, toning to spine and edges, rubbing to bottom edges, pulling to head of spine, photo-illustrated dust-jacket, wear to edges with tiny chips, short tear to upper panel, short tear and crease to rear, toned and lightly marked, spine faded, a very good copy; [32], [ii], xvi, 471, [3]pp. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men chronicles the lives of three sharecropper families in Alabama during the Depression. Its origins lie in a 1936 assignment for Fortune magazine, which James Agee only accepted on the condition that Walker Evans accompanied him as the photographer. Evans was granted leave without pay from his role with the Resettlement Administration (precursor of the Farm Security Administration) for July and August of that year, with the understanding that while Fortune would have first refusal on this set of photographs, they would ultimately, as was the case with all work Evans undertook for the Resettlement Administration, belong to the United States government. Fortune ultimately decided not to run the story and released it to Agee and Evans. In the spring of 1938, they reached an agreement with Harper and Brothers to expand the same material into book form. But, after a year and a half of discussions, Agee's refusal to change the text resulted in the withdrawal of the publishing offer. The project languished until Houghton Mifflin of Boston stepped in on the condition that certain Agee remove certain words that were illegal in Massachusetts. A suite of Evans's direct, unadorned photographs precede Agee's inventive stream-of-consciousness prose. The book was well received, but sales were poor; only around 600 copies were sold in a year and it was remaindered. In the Winter 1942 issue of the Kenyon Review, Lionel Trilling described Let Us Now Praise famous Men as being 'the most important moral effort of our American generation.' Photographers of the FSA III-A1; Regards à travers Le Livre 78; The Book of 101 Books pp108-9; Auer Collection p293; The Photobook: A History I, p144.
Seller: Shapero Rare Books, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$3750.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First edition. Near fine in an about very good, somewhat spine-faded dustwrapper with some internal tape removed, a couple of seamless professional mends, and a couple of small chips. Issued in a small edition, an extended essay on rural poverty with arresting images by Evans. Aside from its place in literary history, the Walker Evans images have made it something of an iconic volume for students of photography. Parr and Badger, *The Photobook Volume 1*, p.144; Roth, *The Book of 101 Books*, p. 108-109.
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
Price: US$3850.00 + shipping
Description: [2],xvi,471pp, with 31 full-page plates from photographs. Octavo. Black cloth, spine lettered in silver. Spine ends faded, small smudge on top edge, pencil notes on rear free endsheet, two ink ownership inscriptions (see below) on front free endsheet, small bookplate on pastedown, but a very good copy in spine sunned, somewhat worn dust jacket with old internal mends and a split along the upper joint. First edition of this central work in the history of 20th century photo-documentary. After he graduated from Harvard, Agee was hired by Time Inc, and wrote for FORTUNE from 1932 to 1937. In 1936, on assignment for the magazine, Agee and Evans (who was then working with the FSA) traveled to southern Alabama where, for eight weeks, they documented via interview and photographs the Depression-era hardships of the daily lives of three families of sharecroppers. In the end, FORTUNE did not publish their article, largely due to Agee's resistance to FORTUNE's editors demands for substantial cuts. Harper & Brothers, who had contracted for book publication following its appearance in FORTUNE, backed out over similar issues. Agee and Evans developed the material further and it was accepted for publication in book form by Houghton Mifflin. The first (and for many years, only) printing consisted of 2416 copies, of which only 600 copies were sold before it was remaindered. It would take another two decades before Houghton Mifflin published another clothbound printing, with an expanded group of photographs. It is now a work considered "by many as the epitome of the genre . pushing the boundaries of the way in which documentary should treat the world" - Parr & Badger, THE PHOTOBOOK A HISTORY, volume one. In 2005, it was selected for publication in the Library of America. This is an excellent association copy, bearing on the front free endsheet the ownership inscription of David U. McDowell, "Gambier, Ohio - 1941 -." McDowell (1918 - 1985) was then teaching at Kenyon College. He enlisted in the Army in 1942, and after the war worked as sales manager and director of publicity at New Directions. In 1949, he left ND and worked as an editor at Random House where he stayed until 1957, when he and Ivan Obolensky joined in founding the publishing firm McDowell, Obolensky. The firm's first list included Agee's posthumously published Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A DEATH IN THE FAMILY. McDowell served as the first trustee of the James Agee Trust, and at the time of his death, was hard at work on a substantial biography of Agee. There are a number of page references in pencil on the rear endsheet which may be McDowell's, and in the text block, on pages corresponding to those references, there are some pencil marginal highlights. Above McDowell's inscription, appears the 1963 ownership signature of novelist and essayist Larry McMurtry. His bookplate, based on the McMurtry family's 'stirrup' brand, is affixed to the front pastedown. In his recent biography of McMurtry, LARRY MCMURTRY A LIFE (New York: St. Martins's Press, 2023), Tracy Daugherty notes: "During his time at North Texas State, McMurtry kept a running list of books he wanted to read, foremost among them James Agee's LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN. The North Texas State library had a copy of the book, but it was always checked out, exasperating McMurtry. At [a] party, [Grover] Lewis, drunk, admitted sheepishly that he was the one who'd sat on the book for over a year, just so McMurtry couldn't get his hands on it. He seemed to think he was being funny. 'It was at that point that I stopped thinking of him simply as a friend, though we continued to see one another for most of the sixties,' McMurtry said." PARR & BADGER I:144.
Seller: William Reese Company - Literature, ABAA, New Haven, CT, U.S.A.
Agee, James and Evans, Walker.. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1941.
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First printing. A Fine copy in black cloth stamped in silver at spine, in a Very Good unsophisticated dustwrapper, not price-clipped, with characteristic fading of spine panel, minor wear to points, spine-ends, no chipping. No tape. No soil. No foxing. Text and endpapers clean and unmarked. 471pp. A superior example. Q12361
Seller: Compass Rose Books, ABAA-ILAB, Kensington, CA, U.S.A.
AGEE, JAMES & WALKER EVANS.. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1941, 1941.
Price: US$4250.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition. Ownership inscription; very good or a little better in a very good dust jacket with a slightly faded spine and some chips and tears; those at the top of the spine affect, but don't obliterate, 'Let.' All books described as first editions are first printings unless otherwise noted.
Seller: Peter L. Stern & Co., Inc, Newton, MA, U.S.A.
Agee, James, and Evans, Walker. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1941.
Price: US$4475.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: 471 pages. Includes black & white photographs. First edition, first printing. The text by Agee and 31 reproductions of photographs by Walker Evans. Fine book except for a slightly bumped bottom front corner in a near fine dust jacket with slight fading (rust tint is gone) to the spine and light wear to the top of the spine. A beautiful copy!
Seller: Fireproof Books, MINNETONKA, MN, U.S.A.
Agee, James; Evans, Walker. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Houghton Mifflin, 1941.
Price: US$4499.99 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First Edition, First Printing. Not price-clipped ($3.50 price intact). Published by Houghton Mifflin, 1941. Octavo. Black cloth boards stamped in white. Book is very good with owner name on inside flyleaf. Has a few light un-creased dog ears throughout. Sharp corners and spine straight. Dust jacket is very good with moderate edge wear/small nicks/tears along edges. Several tears at spine top end. Includes the 30 Walker Evans photographs. A very good copy of this landmark of photojournalism and history. 471 pages plus photographs. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions or if you would like a photo. All books packed carefully and ships with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Southampton, New York.
Seller: Southampton Books, Southampton, NY, U.S.A.
EVANS, Walker and James Agee. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941.
Price: US$4500.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition. Thick octavo. It's a testament to Evans' vision that thirty-one of his photographs, bound in the front of a book published with little fanfare, and set against the backdrop of over 450 pages of verbose text, could have had such an influence on the history of documentary photograph. (Parr / Badger, v1, 44; Roth 108-109). Some scuffing to black cloth boards, with minor blemish at joint; close to near fine. In near fine copy of the illustrated jacket, with typical fading to spine, and minor edge-wear.
Seller: Harper's Books, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Agee, James; Evans, Walker. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1941.
Price: US$5000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1941. Hardcover. First edition. Near fine in an about very good dust jacket with wear on the folds of the jacket. Issued in a small edition, an extended essay on rural poverty with arresting images by Evans. Aside from its place in literary history, the Walker Evans images have made it something of an iconic volume for students of photography. Parr and Badger, *The Photobook Volume 1*, p.144; Roth, *The Book of 101 Books*, p. 108-109. Housed in a handsome clamshell case.
Seller: Bookbid, Beverly Hills, CA, U.S.A.
AGEE James EVANS Walker. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. , 1941.
Price: US$5000.00 + shipping
Description: "AGEE, James and EVANS, Walker. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Three Tenant Families. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $5000.First edition of Agee and Evans' powerful and pioneering documentary photobook on the Great Depression"the epitome of the genre"with 31 full-page photogravures, in very elusive original dust jacket."In 1936, on a journalistic assignment, James Agee and Walker Evans shared the lives of three sharecropper families in the Depression-gaunt South. Their report on the experience became one of 1941s unforgettable books" (New York Times). A groundbreaking collaboration between novelist and photographer, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is regarded today as a classic of American literature Evans' photographshis only excursion into 'true' documentaryremain amongst the finest ever made" (Parr & Badger I:144). At the time of publication, Lionel Trilling called this "the most important moral effort of our American generation" (Kenyon Review). Published in a small editionthe book was not to be reissued until 1960copies of the first edition of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men are extremely scarce and very desirable. Roth, 108-9. Book with mild tonight to top edge, dust jacket with a bit wear to extremities, including a faint crease to the spine, which has the usual toning. A near-fine copy."
Seller: Bauman Rare Books, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$6000.00 + shipping
Description: Original black cloth, blocked in silver. Rear endpaper stained from a newsprint enclosure, else a near-fine copy in dust jacket, slightly faded on the spine and with a few small closed tears. Inscribed by Evans in pencil on the front free endpaper to the photographer and collector "Arnold Crane / from Walker Evans / memorably."
Seller: Thomas A. Goldwasser Rare Books (ABAA), CHESTER, CT, U.S.A.