We Moderns : Gotham Book Mart 1920-1940 [Catalogue No. 42]

[New York]: [Gotham Book Mart], 1940. Card Covers. Fine-. Twentieth anniversary catalogue issued by the famous midtown Manhattan bookstore and cultural landmark, one of 500 unnumbered copies in spiral binding, from a total edition of 5,500. Introductory notes by Frances Steloff and Kay Steele, Gertrude Stein, Samuel Putnam, Dudley Fitts, William Carlos Williams, and Whit Burnett. Crown 8vo (197 x 134mm): 3-88,[2]pp. Wire-bound pictorial card covers (as issued), featuring Carl Van Vechten's photograph of Ruth Bower's painting "The Life of the Party at Finnegans Wake," created to celebrate publication of Joyce's novel in 1939. This copy reputedly from the inventory of Gotham Book Mart and never circulated. Regardless, a superb survival (barely rubbed), tightly bound and clean throughout. Sales catalogue no. 42 for more than 1,200 items, featuring first editions, presentation copies, letters, and manuscripts, as well as little magazines and anthologies of American, English and Continental authors, with personal recollections and commentary from prominent critics, including Kay Boyle, John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, Dorothy Norman, and Ezra Pound, on an array of Modernist authors. The catalogue is credited with helping to shape the Modernist canon. Beyond merely selling books, Gotham Book Mart, opened by Steloff in 1920, served as literary salon, hosting meetings of the Finnegans Wake Society and the James Joyce Society, poetry and author readings, and art exhibitions, with Steloff distributing copies of banned books, including Lady Chatterley's Lover and Tropic of Cancer. The store specialized in poetry, literature, and books about theater, art, music, and dance. It sold both new books and out-of-print and rare books. 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.).