Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941.

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Hardcover. First edition. Owner name on the front pastedown, and initials on the front fly, slight wear at the foot, and light overall wear, including a little foxing on the very edges of the margins of the photographic illustrations. A solid, very good copy lacking the dustwrapper. 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 #91293

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Item #91293 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families. James AGEE, Walker Evans.

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