BRYANT, Louise.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Six Red Months in Russia. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by Bryant to her husband, John "Jack" Reed, on the half-title. Reed, an adventurous American journalist, travelled with Bryant to Russia; his Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) was endorsed by Lenin and remains one of the most well-known accounts of the revolution. The printed dedication describes Reed as "that belovèd vagabond."Loosely inserted are two postcard photographs of Katherine Breshkovsky (1844-1934), the trailblazing Russian political activist, who is shown in the book's frontispiece. Both are inscribed by Breshkovsky and were presumably sent to Bryant at the latter's request. The first has the inscription that was subsequently incorporated photographically into the frontispiece and associated editorial pencilling. The second carries an unused alternative message ("Catherine Breshkovsky, a friend of Americans").Bryant's account was broadly sympathetic to the Russian revolutionaries. As a radical journalist and suffragist, she was drawn to Bolshevik thinking on women's emancipation, and on her return to the US, Bryant undertook a nationwide speaking tour urging support for the nascent communist state.

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