[RADICAL & PROLETARIAN LITERATURE] CONROY, Jack

The Disinherited [Inscribed to Booth Mooney]

New York: Covici Friede Publishers, 1933. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (19.5cm); russet cloth, with titles printed in black on spine; black topstain; dustjacket; [ii],[8],9-310pp. Inscribed by the author on the front endpaper: "For my friend / Booth Mooney / with sincere regards, Jack Conroy / Moberly, MO. Feb.19, 1934." Mooney's pictorial bookplate mounted to front pastedown, mild offsetting to endpapers, scattered foxing to text edges, with spine ends gently nudged; Very Good+. In the first issue (pictorial) dustjacket, with wraparound artwork by Murray Levin; unclipped (priced $2.00), shelfworn, sunned at spine and extremities, with a few small losses and closed tears; Very Good or better.

Laid into this copy is a typed postcard to Mooney, franked and postmarked Feb 21, 1934 on verso. 18 lines (167 words), signed "Jack Conroy" in pencil. Some toning and mild handling, else very well preserved. Also included is a carbon typescript copy (measuring ca.8.5" x 10.75") of two favorable, contemporary reviews of The Disinherited, the first by John Dos Passos, and the second by Josephine Herbst; old horizontal and vertical folds, some toning, and a tiny separation at the intersection of one upper fold.

Conroy's first novel, cited by Walter Rideout as "one of the relatively few proletarian novels written by a working-class author." After the deaths of his brothers and father in a series of mining accidents, Conroy's protagonist bounces around the country, working an endless string of jobs, striking, and seeing these strikes systematically broken by militia and crooked union leaders. Booth Mooney (1912-1977) was a journalist and novelist, who was best known for his close relationship to Lyndon B. Johnson, acting as his executive assistant, speech writer, and later, biographer. Conroy sent him this copy of The Disinherited a few months after publication, writing of its reception: "...almost all the conservative critics praised it highly, but the "arty" radicals take me over the jumps: You know, the starry-eyed young men that bow at the shrine of the Great White Father, Joyce. But workers like my book and think it reflects some of their own experiences, and I am content with that." Of the many copies of this novel we have handled, this is the first to bear the promotional review letter. RIDEOUT pp.182-84, 296; BLAKE pp.162, 167-68; MILES 4984.

Price: $850.00

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