DAHLBERG, Edward

From Flushing to Calvary [Presentation Copy to Evelyn Scott]

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932. First Edition. First Printing. Inscribed on the front endpaper: "For Evelyn Scott whose reaction to my little book I most sincerely appreciate," signed in full, datemarked aboard the S.S. Bremen, Mar 28, 1933. Octavo (20.5cm); tan cloth, with titling and rule stamped in black on spine and front panel; green topstain; dustjacket; 293pp. Top-stain a bit faded and a faint patch of discoloration to spine, else straight an clean; Near Fine. In the original dustwrapper, worn and soiled with small losses at extremities, closed tears, and several puncture holes to spine panel; Good only.

A terrific association copy of the second novel in Dahlberg's proletarian trilogy, which includes Bottom Dogs (1929) and Those Who Perish (1934). From Flushing to Calvary paints a realistic picture of slum life around Calvary Cemetary, New York. Evelyn Scott (1893-1963), a direct contemporary of Dahlberg's, first came to prominence as in the Greenwich Village of the Twenties, both for publishing a well-received volume of modernist verse ("Precipitations," 1920) and as a lover of both Waldo Frank and William Carlos Williams. She later achieved greater prominence as a writer of historical novels and children's fiction. Her presence on the S.S. Bremen in March of 1933 is indeed confirmed by correspondence preserved by her granddaughter, published on-line as "A Life In Letters: A Biography of Evelyn Scott."

Though Dahlberg disavowed his early work later in his career, his three proletarian novels remain a high water mark of the literature of the Great Depression, documenting with sympathy and poetry the lives of hoboes, immigrants, slum-dwellers, B-girls, and others of the vast American underclass of the thirties. Dahlberg signed freely later in life, but inscribed copies of his early books are uncommon. COAN p.104. HANNA 896. RIDEOUT pp.295-296.

Price: $750.00

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