[Rarebooks] FS: The Dedication Copy of John Reed's SANGAR. TO LINCOLN STEFFENS, price reduced
Charles Agvent
charles at charlesagvent.com
Thu May 23 13:21:38 EDT 2019
Price reduced to $5000 NET
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." This is 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.
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."
(#015417) $8,500.00
https://www.charlesagvent.com/shop/agvent/015417.html
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