[RADICAL & PROLETARIAN LITERATURE] KROMER, Tom

Waiting For Nothing [Trade & Advance Issues, with TLS From Sinclair Lewis to Blanche Knopf]

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1935. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (19.25cm); orange cloth, with titling and decorations stamped in black on spine and front cover; black topstain; dustjacket; [x],187,[3]pp. Contemporary bookplate of Brigadier General Philip R. Faymonville on front pastedown, hint of sunning to spine, else a fresh, Fine copy. Dustjacket is unclipped (priced $2.00), with light wear to extremities, hint of sunning to the red portions on the spine, and a faint diagonal crease to upper front flap; Near Fine. Offered together with a copy of the Advance Issue. Octavo (19cm); publisher's taupe cloth, with titles stamped in burgundy on front and rear covers; burgundy topstain; dustjacket; [48]pp. Light wear to extremities, with a touch of dust-soil to lower board edges; contents clean; Near Fine.

Laid into the first edition is a brief one-page TLS from Sinclair Lewis to Blanche Knopf, dated October 2, 1936: "Dear Blanche: Tom Kromer has asked me to read his novel "Waiting for Nothing" to see if I want to recommend him for the Guggenheim Fellowship. Would you like to send me a copy of it here, at the Essex House? Yours sincerely, Sinclair Lewis." Typed letter on white bond, measuring 8 5/8" x 11"; 17 lines (66 words), with a few old folds, a small tear to right edge, and staple holes at upper left corner.

A quintessential novel of the Great Depression, and a masterpiece of understated desperation, written by a West Virginia drifter who famously scribbled his story down on scrap paper scrounged on the streets, in boxcars, and in hobo jungles. The novel was highly praised upon publication, but Kromer never mustered another book-length work; he died, tubercular and forgotten, in a West Virginia sanatorium. The novel was essentially "lost" until its republication by the University of Georgia Press in the 1980s.

In 1936 Kromer prepared his application for a Guggenheim Fellowship, the basis for which was six completed chapters of his working class novel Michael Kohler and a discussion of the industrial scene and proletarian character he explored in Waiting For Nothing. It would have been a logical leap for him to have solicited an recommendation from Lewis, who by then was nationally recognized as an author in the proletarian vein, and whose novel It Can't Happen Here was published the same year as Kromer's debut. Kromer was unsuccessful at securing a Fellowship, though the letter is evidence that Lewis, at the very least, made an effort to acquire a copy of his novel from Knopf in an attempt to help him in his efforts. HANNA 2059; RIDEOUT p.297.

Price: $7,500.00

Go Back