The 42nd Parallel; 1919; The Big Money

New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers; Harcourt, Brace and Company [1932] [1936], 1936. First edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good+. 3 vol. 8vo. [4], v-vii, [5], 1-426, [2]; [4], v-viii, [2], 3-,473 [3]; [4], v-viii, [2], 3-561, [7] pp. Quarter purple cloth over orange, black, blue, and gold patterned paper boards, spine with a paper label printed in black; orange topstain. The second volume is bound in orange cloth with silver lettering on the front board and spine; purple topstain. The third volume is bound in blue cloth with silver lettering on the front board and spine. Orange endpapers and pastedowns in the first volume. Price of $2.50 on (truncated) the front flap of the dust jacket for the first and third volumes. Goldman, "Dos Passos and his U.S.A.". Potter 12, 13, 16. The U.S.A. trilogy, in which the dark side of American capitalism and civilization is explored. Dos Passos is not interested in exploring morality in these books, but rather, how the United States came to be as it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. His characters hail from working class, impoverished, and from priveleged backgrounds, and their trajectories symbolize the mobility or lack thereof in American society. A revealing and cutting trilogy from one of the great writers of the Lost Generation. Bookplate on each front pastedown, faint odor of tobacco to the first volume; the first and third volume's jackets are Near Fine with a couple traces of wear, the second volume's jacket is Very Good and price-clipped, with some edge wear. (Inventory #: 000012034)