The Americans: Photographs by Robert Frank. Introduction by Jack Kerouac

Millerton, NY: Aperture, Inc, 1978. Third edition. Oversize oblong format. Signed and inscriberd by the author / photographer Robert Frank to Harold Hayes, editor in chief of Esquire magazine from 1961 to 1973 having been handpicked by the magazine’s founder, Arnold Gingrich, as his successor. Inscribed: “For Harold and the New Life in California. Robert, July 23, 1984.” During Hayes’s editorship, the magazine kept pace with the tumultuous sixties with landmark articles, fiction, and essays by the likes of Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, Garry Wills, (truncated) Michael Herr, William Burroughs, Jean Genet, Terry Southern, etc., and was a major influence on a generation of writers. In 1981, Hayes took over as editorial vice president of CBS magazines. He moved west in 1984 to become editor of California magazine, a position he held through 1987. Additionally, in 1984, Robert Frank was commissioned by Harold Hayes, editor of California magazine (a position he held through 1987) to photograph the Democratic National Convention held in San Francisco. Near fine copy with a hint of edge wear and very minor bumping to the corners in a near fine dust jacket with the barest indication of age. A collection of 83 black & white photographs of mostly rural America from the 1950’s by renowned photographer Robert Frank. From the opening of the introduction by Jack Kerouac: “That crazy feeling in America when the sun is hot on the streets and music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral, that’s what Robert Frank has captured in tremendous photographs taken as he traveled on the road around practically forty-eight states in an old used car (on Guggenheim Fellowship) and with the agility, mystery, genius, sadness and strange secrecy of a shadow photographed scenes that have never been seen before on film.” (Inventory #: 20312E)