Land of the Free

MacLeish, Archibald. Land of the Free. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1938. First edition. Small quarto. Unpaginated. ff.(88), and (89)-93, (1)pp. Including a list of pictures. Tan linen lettered in black. The first part of the book consists of 88 black & white photos printed on rectos, each with a facing page of MacLeish’s poetry. Spine and edges of covers a bit sun-darkened, and there is a small (1/2″) erosive area at the foot of the spine. Internally clean and sound. Photo credits for this work name Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Arthur Rothstein and others. Bookplate of Dorothy and George Dieter on front pastedown.

Abstract: “‘Land of the Free’ is the opposite of a book of poems illustrated by photographs. It is a book of photographs illustrated by a poem. The photographs, most of which were taken for the Resettlement Administration existed before the poem was written. The book is the result of an attempt to give these photographs an accompaniment of words. In so far as the form of the book is unusual, it is a form imposed by the difficulties of that attempt. The original purpose had been to write some sort of text to which these photographs might serve as commentary. But so great was the power and the stubborn inward livingness of these vivid American documents that the result was a reversal of that plan. The poem was written in July and August, 1937, at Conway, Massachusetts”–A. Mac L. (50870) $95