[RADICAL & PROLETARIAN LITERATURE] FUCHS, Daniel

Low Company

New York: The Vanguard Press, 1937. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (21cm); brown cloth, with titles stamped in black on spine and front cover; navy blue topstain; dustjacket; [vi],[2],3-314pp. Mild offsetting to endpapers, a few tiny indentations at mid-spine, else a fresh, very Near Fine copy, with the topstain bright and unfaded. In the correct first printing dustjacket, with five blurbs on the rear panel; unclipped (priced $2.50), showing modest wear and dust-soil, a few tiny nicks and tears, four tiny punctures on the spine panel, and five pieces of clear tape reinforcement on verso; a solidly Very Good, unrestored example.

The final volume in Fuchs's Williamsburg Trilogy, published by Vanguard between 1934-37, which together paint a witty, sad, and faithful picture of Jewish Brooklyn during the early 1930s. The story is centered around a soda parlor in Neptune Beach (a fictitious version of Brooklyn's Brighton Beach), "where gangsters and whoremasters compete to control a string of houses where petty gamblers and thieves and brutal amateurish murders appear" (Coan, p.174). None of the three books were strong sellers; in Fuchs's preface to the 1961 omnibus edition (Basic Books), he admits Low Company sold only 1,200 copies. Basis for Gordon Wiles's 1947 film noir The Gangster, with the screenplay written by Fuchs and Dalton Trumbo, starring Barry Sullivan, Joan Loring, Akim Tamiroff, and Harry Morgan. The Dark Page, Vol.1, pp.108-109; Hanna 1330.

Price: $3,750.00

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