Agee, James, and Walker Evans:

$3,850 · Offered by William Reese Company

LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN. 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 in

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