CALDWELL, Erskine (1903-1987)

Tenant Farmer [Signed]

New York: Phalanx Press, 1935. First Edition. Stiff Wrappers. Caldwell's scalding indictment of tenant farming and sharecropping in the Depression-era South, reserving especial contempt for Eugene Talmadge, then governor of Georgia. Signed by Caldwell on the title page. Slim 8vo (195 x 135mm): 30,[2]pp. Drab green stapled wrappers, upper cover lettered in orange. Previous owner's name to inside front cover, else a handsome example with only very light wear to extremities. Somewhat scarce (according to Blanck, "Said to be but 1,500 copies in the first printing). Blanck, p.95. Fine. Item #BB2133

Appears as "Southern Tenant Farmers" in the author's first collection of nonfiction pieces, Some American People. First in a planned series of political pamphlets by prominent authors to be commissioned by this radical publisher, but apparently no others were published. Caldwell concludes: "The landowner-tenant system should not be permitted to exist. . . . No other system has yet appeared on the scene to take its place, and until it does, the demoralizing spectacle of seeing thousands of men, women, and children, both black and white, being cheated and squeezed and crucified by a profit system that should have no foothold in modern civilization—until a better system arrives, the present one should make the American people hang their heads in shame." N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

Price: $251.00