[RADICAL & PROLETARIAN LITERATURE] ALGREN, Nelson

Somebody in Boots [Inscribed to Ken McCollum]

New York: The Vanguard Press, 1935. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (21.5cm); russet cloth, blocked and titled in black on spine; brown topstain; [x],322,[4]pp. Warmly inscribed on the title page to Ken McCollum, Algren's bibliographer, with a drawing of a cat, dated 1972: "With best wishes to Ken McCollum / from Nelson Algren (Whose private opinion it is that McCollum must be out of his gourd) / Chicago, 12 August, 1972." Gentle sunning to spine, some crimping to cloth at crown, upper corners gently tapped (though still sharp), with a thin crack to gutter at half-title page; Very Good or better, lacking the scarce dustjacket.

Algren's first book, which he dedicated to "Those innumerable thousands: The Homeless Boys of America." A largely autobiographical work, charting Algren's own Depression-era wanderings while riding the rails between El Paso, Texas and Chicago, Illinois. "A story of jobless youth and their disillusionment. Bitter indictment of a social system that condemns its younger generation to soup lines and a hobo existence" (Coan, p.79). Algren would later rework material from the novel and incorporated it into A Walk on the Wild Side (1956). Bruccoli mentions an unknown print run for the novel, but it was likely very small, and purportedly only 750 copies were sold. BRUCCOLI A1.1; HANNA 50.

Price: $2,000.00

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