Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941.

Price: $3,750.00

Hardcover. 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.

Item #99509

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Item #99509 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families. James AGEE, Walker Evans.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families

James Agee
birth name: James Agee
born: 11/27/1909
died: 5/16/1955
nationality: USA

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Biography

American poet, novelist, and one of the most influential American film critics in the 1930s and '40s.more

Collecting tips:

Agee's first book Permit Me, Voyage (1934), is a moderately expensive book, and scarce in fine condition, but like much poetry, doesn't exactly fly off the shelf. His most eagerly sought after title, a collaboration with photographer Walker Evans, is Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), which is nearly impossible to find with an unfaded spine. A relatively inexpensive alternative is the 1960 reprint that adds additional Evans photographs. His posthumously published novel A Death in the Family (1957) won the Pulitzer Prize, and while published in substantial numbers is becoming very scarce in the right condition, as the blue jacket rubs easily. The book has a number of issue points, but if the title page isn't printed in blue, look no further. Agee didn't sign many books, so finding signed copies should be considered a coup, unless its one of the posthumously published ones.

We also offer a comprehensive James Agee Bibliography and Price Guide.more