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![]() | Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) Three Tenant Families A non fiction book by James Agee and Walker Evans |
Just what kind of book is Let Us Now Praise Famous Men? It contains many things: poems; confessional reveries; disquisitions on the proper way to listen to Beethoven; snippets of dialogue, both real and imagined; a lengthy response to a survey from the Partisan Review; exhaustive catalogs of furniture, clothing, objects, and smells. And then there are Walker Evans's famously stark portraits of depression-era sharecroppers--photographs that both stand apart from and reinforce James Agee's words.
Assigned to do a story for Fortune magazine about sharecroppers in the Deep South, Agee and Evans spent four weeks living with a poor white tenant family, winning the Burroughs's trust and immersing themselves in a sharecropper's daily existence. Given a first draft of the resulting article, the editors at Fortune quite understandably threw up their hands--as did several other editors who subsequently worked with a later book-length manuscript. The writing was contrary. It refused to accommodate itself to the reader, and at times it positively bristled with hostility. (What other book could take Marx as the epigraph and then announce: "These words are quoted here to mislead those who will be misled by them"?) Response to the book was puzzled or unfriendly, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sputtered out of print only a few short years after its publication. It took the 1960s, and a vogue for social justice, to bring Agee's masterwork the audience it deserved.
Yet the book is far more interesting--aesthetically and morally--than the sort of guilty-liberal tract for which it is often mistaken. On an existential level, Agee's text is a deeply felt examination of what it means to suffer, to struggle to live in spite of suffering. On a personal level, it is the painful, beautifully written portrait of one man's obsession. In its collaboration with Evans's photographs, the book is also a groundbreaking experiment in form. In the end, however, it is more than merely the sum of its parts. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is, quite simply, a book unlike any other, simmering with anger and beauty and mystery. --Mary Park
Assigned to do a story for Fortune magazine about sharecroppers in the Deep South, Agee and Evans spent four weeks living with a poor white tenant family, winning the Burroughs's trust and immersing themselves in a sharecropper's daily existence. Given a first draft of the resulting article, the editors at Fortune quite understandably threw up their hands--as did several other editors who subsequently worked with a later book-length manuscript. The writing was contrary. It refused to accommodate itself to the reader, and at times it positively bristled with hostility. (What other book could take Marx as the epigraph and then announce: "These words are quoted here to mislead those who will be misled by them"?) Response to the book was puzzled or unfriendly, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sputtered out of print only a few short years after its publication. It took the 1960s, and a vogue for social justice, to bring Agee's masterwork the audience it deserved.
Yet the book is far more interesting--aesthetically and morally--than the sort of guilty-liberal tract for which it is often mistaken. On an existential level, Agee's text is a deeply felt examination of what it means to suffer, to struggle to live in spite of suffering. On a personal level, it is the painful, beautifully written portrait of one man's obsession. In its collaboration with Evans's photographs, the book is also a groundbreaking experiment in form. In the end, however, it is more than merely the sum of its parts. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is, quite simply, a book unlike any other, simmering with anger and beauty and mystery. --Mary Park
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Used availability for James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
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Hardback Editions
June 2001 : Hardback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families Author(s): James Agee, Walker Evans ISBN: 1-900828-15-4 / 9781900828154 (UK edition) Publisher: Violette Editions Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
March 2000 : Hardback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: The American Classic, in Words and Photographs, of Three Tenant Families in the Deep South Author(s): James Agee ISBN: 0-395-95771-0 / 978-0-395-95771-4 (USA edition) Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
November 1988 : Hardback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families Author(s): James Agee ISBN: 0-395-48901-6 / 978-0-395-48901-7 (USA edition) Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
1984 : Leather Bound
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families (The Southern Classics Library) Author(s): James Agee Publisher: Southern Living Gallery Availability: Amazon UK More details... |
September 1973 : Hardback
| Title: Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): Evans Walker, Agee James ISBN: 0-395-07330-8 / 978-0-395-07330-8 (USA edition) Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
1969 : Hardback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee; Photographs Walker Evans Publisher: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Availability: Amazon More details... |
1965 : Hardback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James,And Evans,Walker. Agee Publisher: Peter Owen Availability: Amazon Amazon UK More details... |
January 1960 : Hardback
| Title: LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN: THREE TENANT FAMILIES. Author(s): James. AGEE Publisher: Unknown Availability: Amazon More details... |
January 1941 : Hardback
| Title: Let us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James & Evans, Walker Agee Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Availability: Amazon More details... |
Paperback Editions
April 2006 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (Penguin Modern Classics) Author(s): James Agee, Walker Evans ISBN: 0-14-118849-9 / 978-0-14-118849-2 (UK edition) Publisher: Penguin Classics Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
August 2001 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: The American Classic, in Words and Photographs, of Three Tenant Families in the Deep South Author(s): Walker Evans, James Agee ISBN: 0-618-12749-6 / 978-0-618-12749-8 (USA edition) Publisher: Mariner Books Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
1999 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee, Walker Evans ISBN: 0-7206-1084-2 / 978-0-7206-1084-0 (UK edition) Publisher: Peter Owen Availability: Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
January 1989 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee ISBN: 0-395-48897-4 / 978-0-395-48897-3 (USA edition) Publisher: Mariner Books Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
January 1988 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (Picador Classics) Author(s): James Agee, Walker Evans ISBN: 0-330-30285-X / 978-0-330-30285-2 (UK edition) Publisher: Macmillan Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
October 1980 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee ISBN: 0-395-29696-X / 978-0-395-29696-7 (USA edition) Publisher: Mariner Books Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
1980 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; Three Tenant Families Author(s): James Agee Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Availability: Amazon More details... |
August 1974 : Mass Market Paperback
| Title: LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS Author(s): James Agee ISBN: 0-345-23765-X / 978-0-345-23765-1 (USA edition) Publisher: Ballantine Books Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
August 1974 : Mass Market Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee, Evans Walker ISBN: 0-345-27696-5 / 978-0-345-27696-4 (USA edition) Publisher: Ballantine Books (Mm) Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
1973 : Mass Market Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee Publisher: Ballantine Availability: Amazon More details... |
1972 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee, Walker Evans Publisher: Ballantine, 1972 Availability: Amazon More details... |
October 1969 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (Modern Society S) Author(s): James Agee, Walker Evans ISBN: 0-586-02890-0 / 978-0-586-02890-2 (UK edition) Publisher: Panther Availability: Amazon Amazon UK More details... |
1966 : Paperback
| Title: LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN Author(s): James Agee Publisher: Ballantine Books Availability: Amazon More details... |
May 1965 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee, Walker Evans, Walker ISBN: 0-7206-4982-X / 978-0-7206-4982-6 (UK edition) Publisher: Peter Owen Ltd Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
January 1960 : Paperback
| Title: LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN Author(s): James Agee and Walker Evans Publisher: Houghton And Mifflin Availability: Amazon More details... |
January 1941 : Paperback
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): james agee Publisher: Houghton Mifflin company Availability: Amazon More details... |
Audio Editions
January 1971 : Audio Cassette
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee, Evans Walker ISBN: 0-694-50212-X / 978-0-694-50212-7 (USA edition) Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Audio Availability: Amazon Amazon CA More details... |
Other Editions
1969 : Unknown
| Title: Three Tenant Families: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (Panther Modern Society) Author(s): James Agee Publisher: Panther Availability: Amazon UK More details... |
1965 : Unknown
| Title: Let us now praise famous men (Three tenant families series) Author(s): James Agee Publisher: Owen Availability: Amazon Amazon UK More details... |
1965 : Unknown
| Title: Three Tenant Families: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Author(s): James Agee Publisher: Peter Owen Availability: Amazon UK More details... |
1965 : Unknown
| Title: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (Three tenant families series) Author(s): James Agee, Walker Evans Publisher: Owen Availability: Amazon UK More details... |
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