This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/20/2022
[AMERICAN WEST – PHOTOGRAPHY]. MACLEISH, Archibald (1892–1982). Land of the Free. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, [1938].
8vo. Numerous illustrations from photographs by Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke–White, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn and several others. Original beige cloth (some minor toning at extremes; original unclipped dust jacket (few tiny chips at extreme ends and corners).
FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. “‘Land of the Free’ is the opposite of a book of poems illustrated by photographs. It is a book of photographs illustrated by a poem. The photographs, most of which were taken for the Resettlement Administration, existed before the poem was written. The book is the result of an attempt to give these photographs an accompaniment of words…But so great was the power and stubborn inward livingness of these vivid American documents that the result was a reversal of that plan” (from the back flap).