The Cry For Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest

Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, Publishers, 1915. First Edition. Octavo (20.5cm); maroon cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine and front cover; photographic frontispiece,891,[5]pp; illus. Spine ends nudged, light wear to corners and lower board edges, internally clean and tight; a Very Good copy.With printed bookplate of Ruth Jarvis Hall to front pastedown.

Important early anthology of radical prose, poetry, and art, chosen "from five thousand years of writings on the working man." Includes sources as diverse as Arturo Giovannitti and Eugene Debs to Habakkuk and Martin Luther. Sinclair's intention with this work was to create a "Socialist Bible" to be mass-produced and present in every American household, and Winston's initial edition even included a "Bible Issue" in black, limp pebble-grained morocco. In his introduction, Jack London indeed refers to this as "a humanist holy book;" but as of this writing (2025), Sinclair's effort does not appear to have supplanted the Christian Bible – despite years of looking, we have yet to encounter a copy of The Cry for Justice in a hotel dresser drawer. There was also a Sinclair issue of this title, ca. 1921; this trade edition from the Philadelphia publisher John C. Winston is by far the scarcer. AHOUSE A22a; BAL 11961. (Inventory #: 86007)