Theodore Dreiser
Dreiser Looks at Russia.
Horace Liveright, 1928. First edition. 264 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 6" x 8.5", is bound in black cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine and front cover. Compartment in red with gilt pictorial design appears on front cover. Book displays shelfwear, with two small punctures to lower half of front cover and very mild rubbing to covers. Binding is sound. Previous owner's name and address are written on front flyleaf. Pages are clean and bright. Work is illustrated with vignettes. Price-clipped dust jacket, with minor loss at head/foot of spine panel and at corners. Minor loss of material can be seen at front panel, very marginally affecting title. Jacket is in mylar cover.
"That incorrigible individualist, Theodore Dreiser, visits Russia at the invitation of the Soviet Government and views its working demonstration of the Communist State! Stranger still, this Dostoievsky from Chicago visits the land of Dostoievsky, to find imitation Chicagos springing up all over its limitless miles...Not satisfied to stay in one room -- even though that room was in Moscow, the seat of government -- Mr. Dreiser asked and was granted "the run of the house". He spent eleven weeks in Russia, traveling into such inland cities and outlying regions as Perm, Novgorod, Kiev, Kharkoff, Rostov, Tiflis, Baku, Batoum and Odessa...Mr. Dreiser tells what he doesn't like as well as what he does like, and there is genuine interest as well as valuable information to be derived from the chapters on Women and the Sex Question' Literature and Art: Religion; Propaganda; the Peasant; and the Russian versus the American Temperament. And there is humor, charm and pathos in "Three Russian Restaurants" and "Vignettes".