[Rarebooks] FS: The Dedication Copy of John Reed's First Book, SANGAR, Inscribed to Lincoln Steffens

[Charles Agvent]

 From our just posted new catalog, the entirety of which can be seen at
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REED, John. SANGAR. TO LINCOLN STEFFENS (The DEDICATION Copy Inscribed 
to Lincoln Steffens). Riverside, CT: Hillacre, 1913. First Edition. 
Small quarto (6-1/2" x 9-3/4"); dark brown paper boards stamped in gilt 
on front and spine; publisher_s cardboard slipcase. Illustrated with a 
frontispiece photograph of Lincoln Steffens with tissue guard. One of 
only 500 copies of Reed's first book, a poem subtitled "The mad recreant 
knight of the west." The dedication copy, INSCRIBED and SIGNED by Reed 
as well as by each of the publishers, Frederick C. and Anne D. Bursch, 
in ink on the dark grey front endpaper. Reed writes: "To Stef --/who 
might not have done it/if he had known that this/was to be the 
result./He aimed at peace and accomplished literature./From the 
author/Jack Reed." John Reed was perhaps the best known left-wing 
American journalist of the twentieth century; he was portrayed by Warren 
Beatty in the film REDS, nominated for twelve Academy Awards and winner 
of three, which centered on Reed's life, his romance with Louise Bryant, 
and his early death at 33 in Moscow. Lincoln Steffens gained fame as one 
of the earliest muckrakers, exposing corruption in business and 
government. The publishers have each INSCRIBED the book on the same 
leaf: "To Stef/who did it that Jack Reed/might write it, that/Billy S[ ] 
might make/a book of it and that/Frederick C. Bursch might/get a bit of 
the glory of it." And: "Dear Lincoln Steffens,/This is the/one reason so 
far that I have found/why I should be grateful for the/existence of Jack 
Reed./Ann Denise Bursch."  Fine in a close to Very Good original and 
fragile slipcase with some loss. In a specially made Fine cloth 
clamshell box. $8,500.00	

Steffens's complex and, ultimately, doomed effort to mediate in the 
infamous 1911 McNamara trial in Los Angeles inspired Reed's composition 
of this "Christian allegory." The McNamara brothers, John and James, 
leaders of the radical international association of bridge and 
structural iron workers union, were indicted for the 1910 dynamiting of 
the LOS ANGELES TIMES building which killed twenty people. Initially 
supporters of the McNamaras protested that the charges against the 
brothers were trumped up and that the deadly explosion was attributable 
to faulty maintenance by management. But as the trial dragged on even 
the brothers' own lawyer, Clarence Darrow, grew convinced of their 
guilt. It was at this point that Steffens interceded (at whose request 
remains unclear to this day), confident that some permutation of the 
"golden rule" could be applied to resolve the case to the satisfaction 
of both sides and that the residual benefit of such a "Christianly" 
settlement would be a dialogue between capital and labor. But Steffens's 
meddling apparently infuriated Judge Bordwell, who tossed the book at 
the McNamaras even after they'd altered their pleas to guilty expecting 
to be shown leniency. Both brothers received lengthy prison terms. 
Steffens was blasted from all sides. Capital -- led by Harrison Gray 
Otis, proprietor of the TIMES, and Theodore Roosevelt -- thumbed their 
noses at him, as did labor, cheerleaded by Emma Goldman and Max Eastman, 
who charged Steffens with sanctimonious naiveté for collaborating with 
the anti-McNamara forces. Reed's position was more ambiguous and he 
composed SANGAR ostensibly in praise of his mentor's work in Los 
Angeles. Reed went so far as to read SANGAR aloud to Steffens in a 
Greenwich Village restaurant prior to sending it off to POETRY magazine, 
where Harriet Monroe not only published it but gave it an award. But 
twenty years later when he wrote his autobiography, and Reed was many 
years dead, Steffens took no pride in the dedication. "John Reed, my own 
boy," he noted, "wrote a fierce poem, 'Sangar,' denouncing me."


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