Paris: Corrêa, 1952. First French Edition. First French edition of Himes's second book, originally published as Lonely Crusade by Knopf in 1947. A penetrating and subtle left-wing (but intensely anti-Communist) novel concerning race conflict at a California aircraft factory during World War II, which managed to offend African-Americans, whites, communists..... More

New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1940. Attractive copy of Wright's first novel, which catapulted him into national fame. "The book is a shattering portrait of Bigger Thomas, the protagonist, who is a product of racism and oppression. The novel takes its readers through treacherous corridors of violence and retribution..... More

New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1911. First Edition. Socialist novel, written shortly after Cook's conversion to Socialism under the influence of Floyd Dell. Rideout: "The 'chasm' of the title is partly objectified in the conflict faced by a wealthy American girl between the philosophy of Nitezsche...and that of Marx, as..... More

New York: The Vanguard Press, 1932. First Edition. Farrell's first novel, and a high-point of the proletarian genre. Farrell would follow this debut with The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (1934) and Judgment Day (1935), completing a trilogy which Michael Sadleir called "the most impressive study of degeneration since Zola's..... More

Madrid: Editorial Fenix, 1933. Second Spanish Edition. Spanish-language edition of Gold's classic portrayal of Jewish life in Manhattan's Lower East Side. First published in the US in 1929; the first Spanish edition followed in 1930 (Madrid: Cenit); the current edition is uncommon, with fewer than 5 holdings in North America..... More

New York: Masses & Mainstream, 1952. First Trade Edition. Autobiographical novel with a Polish setting, by the prominent American Marxist essayist and critic; a sequel was published posthumously in 1966. RIDEOUT p.300. First Printing. Octavo (20.75cm); grayish-green cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine; dustjacket; 288pp. Gentle sunning to..... More

New York: Citadel, 1950. First Edition. Page began her career as the Soviet correspondent for the Daily Worker; she was also a prolific contributor to Communist Party periodicals such as Soviet Russia Today, The Southern Worker, and New Masses. The present work, set in the Pennsylvania coal fields, deals specifically..... More

New York: Red Star Press, 1933. Second Printing. Socialist romance, described by Rideout as the "...only radical novel published in the thirties which was deliberately written as a romance...even to its stilted prose, an unrepresentative anachronism." Spiro/Marlen, a one-time leader of the Trotskyist Communist League of America, was also the..... More

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913. First Edition. Among the more nuanced Socialist novels of the 'teens and, according to Rideout, one of the first serious portrayals of the I.W.W. in American fiction. The book is also noteworthy for offering a woman protagonist who, in contrast to the formulaic society-girl-turned-socialist..... More

Girard, KS: The Appeal to Reason, 1907. First Edition. A novel of the Colorado mine wars, billed in the Publisher's introduction as "unique...from the fact that the author has introduced a new experiment in realistic story writing, in that all his characters are real persons and only in a few..... More

New York: International Publishers, 1932. First Edition. Page's first novel, based on the Loray Mill Strike in Gastonia, North Carolina, emphasizing "the need for unity between black and white workers not only in organizing Southern textile mills but in their common struggle to overthrown capitalism. Tom Crenshaw, the white organizer..... More

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1935. First Edition. "A proletarian novel of the life of an Austrian Jew in New York. Young Isaac is brought by his parents from a village in Eastern Europe at an early age, his father fails successively as tailor, janitor, candy store owner, and Isaac..... More

New York: The Jungle Publishing Company, 1906. First edition. Sinclair's landmark book, perhaps the most famous of American muckracking novels. Written in an attempt to bring attention to the depredations of capitalism and the plight of poor immigrants in Chicago, but succeeding instead in awakening Americans to startlingly unhygienic practices..... More