Fighting Words

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940. First Edition. Octavo. Black cloth boards; dustjacket; 167pp. Bit of foxing to endpapers, else Near Fine. In the original dustwrapper, with $1.50 price intact on both front and rear flaps; all four corners clipped by publisher. Jacket lightly rubbed on rear panel, mildly sunned on spine, but otherwise quite clean and crisp, Very Good+.

Though not billed as such in the jacket copy, this work in fact comprises the Report of the Third Writers' Congress, held in the summer of 1939. Seidman: "...the report is a folksy, running commentary on the Congress. Sections deal with folklore, writing craft problems (including a brief mention of proletarian literature), the novel, the Negro in fiction [...] section titles are used to contrast the aims of writers with war aims, and the volume ends on an antiwar, anti-imperialist note." Dedicated in print to the CP-affiliated League of American Writers. A somewhat uncommon title, especially in jacket. This a quite nice copy. SEIDMAN S413. (Inventory #: 84937)