Search Results: Books by radical proletarian

New York: Random House, 2006. First Edition. Octavo. Publisher's paper-covered boards; dustjacket; 380pp; illus. Tight, straight copy, free of markings or wear, in unworn dustwrapper. Near-new.

Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1958. First Edition. 12mo. Staple-bound pamphlet; printed wrappers; 73pp. Near Fine. Lengthy essay on the creative imperatives of Party-sponsored literature. Includes appendix by Shao Chuan-Lin, "Clear the Road and Advance Boldly!

Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1979. First English Language Edition. 12mo. Original pictorial card wrappers; 64pp + 10 leaves of photographic plates (halftones). Covers slightly rubbed, with spot of sticker residue at head of front wrapper, else Near Fine. Collection of poems produced during the first (state-sponsored) Tiananmen Incident, in April 1976, when hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens rallied to commemorate the late premier Zhou Enlai and to effect the (state-ordained) downfall of the Gang of Four. Includes ten leaves (20 pages) of photographic illustrations.

New York: Thomas Selzer, 1920. First Edition. 12mo (18cm). Original printed paper boards; 98pp. Minor external wear and soil; corners of boards lightly bumped; a tight, clean, VG copy, lacking the dustwrapper. Early work by the prolific British poet-journalist, perhaps best known for his later career as a travel writer. Issued as No. 1 in the "Plays For A People's Theatre" series, which also included D.H. Lawrence's Touch & Go.

Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983. First Edition. Octavo. Printed card wrappers; 403pp. Minor external rubbing and soil; internally clean, tight and unmarked; VG to Near Fine overall. Study of American ethnic, social and proletarian literature. Text entirely in German.

Scottsdale: Rampart Press, 1960. First, Limited Edition. Octavo (24cm). Originial red cloth with laid on cover and spine titles; 29pp; boldly inscribed to Richard and Margot Archer on first free endpaper. One of 400 copies. Sunning to cloth of spine, else fine. A long poem on the theme of southern poverty and civil rights. Issued as Morning Star Quarto no. V.

Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1978. First, Limited Editiion. Cloth-backed boards; acetate dustjacket. One of 200 Special copies, bound in boards by Earle Gray. Fine copy in original acetate dustjacket.

New York: International Publishers, 1948. First Edition. First Printing, cloth issue. Octavo (20cm); orange cloth, with titles stamped in black on spine; dustjacket; [8],9-250,[6]pp. Clean and unmarked in original pictorial dustwrapper, unclipped and generally clean but for a moisture stain extending halfway up the rear flap-fold; this had bled through to cause a faint line of discoloration to fore-edge of rear board. Very Good. Fictionalized biography of a worker-radical in the National Maritime Union. "...written as vigorously as [its] central characters lived, but in almost all other ways...quite lacking in the art of the novel" (Rideout, p.267). Still, very representative of the post-war Communist literary aesthetic, and uncommon in such nice condition. The authors - she a Daily Worker reporter and he a waterfront strike organizer - met and married during the maritime strike of 1936-37. RIDEOUT p.267. HANNA 2592. SEIDMAN M196.

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (19.5cm); blue-gray cloth, with titling and decorative elements stamped in silver and black on spine and front cover; viii,412,[8]pp ads. Gently spine-sunned, lightly edgeworn, with some faint moisture staining to lower front and rear covers (though contents unaffected); previous owners ink name to front endpaper, with some crinkling to right edge of textblock on a few of the center gatherings; just Very Good. A Socialist single-tax utopia, the sequel to Bellamy's enormously popular Looking Backward 2000-1887. "It argues that economic equality is the cornerstone on which the complete life of an industrial democracy rests - political, intellectual, ethical. Although it emphasizes the place of religion in the world of A.D. 2000, society needs no organized church or ordained ministry" (Barron, Anatomy of Wonder 1-7). BAL 967; SARGENT p.56; NEGLEY 81.

New York: Viking Press, 1937. First Edition. Octavo (21.5cm). Original tan cloth, red topstain, 558pp; dustjacket. Slight lean to spine, trivial spotting to foredge, else binding tight and pages clean. Dustjacket is unclipped but front panel is separated at spine fold, chipped with several closed tears. Good or better. Presentable copy of Halper's most straightforwardly radical novel, written after his decided move to the Left following negative responses by leftist critics to his first two novels. HANNA 1548. RIDEOUT p.298.

New York: People's Artists, 1953. First Edition. Octavo. Staple-bound pamphlet; illustrated card wrappers; 23pp. Presentation copy, inscribed by Edith Segal in October, 1953: "To Lil, Moishe, & Paul, warmest regards and heads up - Edith." Moderate cover wear; mild soiling within; Very Good. A collection of Segal's proletarian hymns, following her widely-issued "Give Us Your Hand," which had been issued the year before to raise money for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's defense fund. The current volume contains a number of memorial poems to the Rosenbergs, but is composed primarily of works on the theme of Morton Sobell, an accused Soviet spy who had been swept up in the course of the Rosenberg affair. We have beeen unsuccessful in identifying "Lil, Moishe, and Paul," but from the tenor of Segal's inscription we would assume some connection to Sobell.

New York: Small, Maynard & Co, 1916. First Edition. Green cloth boards stamped in white; 363pp; frontis. Light wear to tips of corners and spine ends; brief splits to front hinge (internal); bit of offsetting to title page from color frontispiece. A solidly Very Good copy. HANNA 1096: "...young bank employee, falsely convicted of embezzlement, spends two years in Sing Sing before being cleared." Octavo.

Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1940. First Edition. Octavo (20.5cm.); pictorial cloth with matching pictorial dustjacket; 350pp. Tight, Near Fine copy in lightly worn jacket with brief losses at crown of spine. A Brooklyn family on relief relocates to dustbowl-era Oklahoma, where they organize local farmers to stage a sit-down strike for redistribution of food and land. Based on actual events. Rothermell authored several well-written novels, and worked on the New York Federal Writers' Project. HANNA 3076. BLAKE p.270.

New York: Mitchell Kennerly, 1909 [but later]. Original red cloth boards, lettered in white on spine and front cover; dustjacket; 329pp. Tight, Near Fine copy in slightly soiled dustwrapper. Dates on title page and copyright match (1909), however, jacket states "Third Edition." Harris's only foray into "proletarian" fiction--a novel set among the anarchist victims of the events surrounding Chicago's Haymarket Square bombing of 1886. Published by Kennerley in 1909 and reissued by Harris in the Twenties; it is unclear whether the current issue is in fact from a third re-setting of the text, or simply a remainder with a new dustwrapper. We note that the jacket sits about 1/16" short for the book, but we offer it as received.

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (19.5cm); dark blue cloth, blocked and titled in burgundy and gilt on spine and front cover; viii, 448, [8]pp ads. Neat, contemporary owner's name and date to front endpaper (a "Dr. L.W. Truman"). Mild external wear, with light rubbing to corners and spine ends; hinges very lightly pulled; a clean and unmarked copy, easily Very Good. Among the more nuanced Socialist novels of the 'teens and, according to Rideout, one of the first serious portrayals of the I.W.W. in American fiction. The book is also noteworthy for offering a woman protagonist who, in contrast to the formulaic society-girl-turned-socialist so common to the radical "conversion" novels of the period, is here a sweatshop worker who must do battle with her instinctive militancy (which initially attracts her to the IWW) to finally join the Socialist Party. RIDEOUT p.294. HANNA 508.

Pasadena: By the Author, 1935. First Edition. Red cloth boards; dustjacket; 124pp. Tight, straight copy, about Fine in the uncommon dustjacket, lightly rubbed and soiled but still attractive and free of losses, VG or better. Satirical stage drama, based on Sinclair's 1933 pamphlet "The Way Out." Produced as a fund-raiser during Sinclair's EPIC campaign, but probably never staged since. Unlike most other Sinclair works from this period, there was no simultaneous issue from a trade publisher. According to Ahouse, Sinclair had planned this as a film, and thus there are no act or scene divisions in the printed play. The film was never produced.Uncommon in jacket. AHOUSE A55a.

New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936. First, Limited Edition. One of 275 signed copies, signed by Benet on limitation page. Octavo (22cm.); full burgundy morocco; later custom cloth chemise and slipcase; 80pp; illus. Fine in original glassine; slipcase lightly sunned on spine, VG or better. Benet, always a "people's poet," was at his most socially engaged in this collection published at the height of the Great Depression. Includes his stridently anti-Fascist long poem "Litany for Dictatorships," and the powerful suite of Depression poems beginning with "Metropolitan Nightmare" and ending with "1936.

Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc, 1927. Reprint. Octavo (20.75cm); dark red cloth, with titling and decorations stamped in yellow on spine and front cover; pictorial endpapers; yellow topstain; dustjacket; [viii],280pp; illus. Slight forward lean, spine ends gently nudged, with a handful of small stains to right edge of textblock; Very Good+. Dustjacket is edgeworn, spine-sunned, with a few small chips at spine ends, several short tears and attendant creases; Very Good. "Despite its cheery-sounding title, Circus Parade is light years away from Toby Tylerland, presenting a dark, violent and thoroughly unromanticized portrait of life on the road with a traveling show -- described by Tully as "generally a canvas nest of petty thieves and criminals among the lower gentry." The book's depictions of casual brutality -- including a shocking account of the troupe's exploitation of a young black girl's sexual favors -- got it banned in Boston and caused an uproar with circus fans (and,… Read More

North Montpelier, VT: Driftwood Press / Walter John Coates, 1933. First Edition. Small, slim 12mo (16cm.); publisher's tan pictorial card wrappers, yapp edges; [2],38pp.; printed on stiff tan handmade stock. Light edge wear, faint dampstaining along spine edge of upper and rear cover (not bleeding into textblock); Very Good overall, internally fine and unopened. "Driftwood Chapbook No. 2." Anthology edited by the founder of the "Rebel Poets," the present title including poems by Witter Bynner, Stanton A. Coblentz, Carl Sandburg, and many others. From the introduction by the series editors: "They [the editors] share with Ralph Cheyney a preference for the spirit of Gandhi rather than the spirit of Lenin, though admiring both men. They favor non-violent noncooperation, over mass violence, as a method of social change" (p. 4).

New York: Fortuny's, 1941. First Edition. Small octavo (20cm). Red cloth boards; dustjacket; 205pp. Small adhesive label to front free endpaper; faint scratches to foredge of text block, else a tight, straight copy in the original dustwrapper. Jacket is complete but worn; price-clipped, with closed tears at front flap-fold and shallow losses at head and heel of spine panel (not approaching jacket text). A Very Good copy. Somewhat uncommon proletarian hobo novel, set on Seattle's skid row, by a Seattle author. In the words of one contemporary reviewer: "The Dissenters is as poorly written as it is poorly edited, and that is saying a lot...but through all this there does come, astonishingly, an interesting recapitulation of thirty years of recent American history as seen from the Seattle Skidway...and [of] the Skidway socialism which is the thesis of the book..." (Joseph B. Harrison, "The Dissenters" [book review]. Pacific Northwest Quarterly vol. 33 no 1 (Jan. 1942). Somewhat scarce in dustwrapper.… Read More