“SYNONYMOUS WITH EVERYTHING SUBVERSIVE”: LIVING MY LIFE, 1934, INSCRIBED BY EMMA GOLDMAN

GOLDMAN, Emma. Living My Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1934. Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket.

First one-volume edition of the famous radical’s autobiography, with frontispiece portraits and eleven additional photogravures of Goldman, fellow anarchist Alexander Berkman and others, boldly inscribed: "Mrs. Sabina Cohen, Emma Goldman."

"For nearly 30 years, Emma Goldman had taunted conservative Americans with her outspoken attacks on government, big business and war. Her name became a household world, synonymous with everything subversive and demonic, but also symbolic of the 'new woman' and of the radical labor movement that blossomed in the years before WWI. To the public she was America's arch revolutionary, both frightening and fascinating. She flaunted her lovers, talked back to the police, smoked in public and marched off to prison carrying James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist under her arm" (Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile). Goldman was urged to record her story for years by Peggy Guggenheim, fellow activists and others such as Theodore Dreiser, who insisted, "it is the richest of any woman's of our century. Why in the name of Mike don't you do it?" Finally, less than a decade before her death, she produced Living My Life, a work that remains one of America's most valued social histories. The (two-volume) first edition was published in 1931; this is the first one-volume edition, preceded only by the American and British first editions. Interestingly, this edition was the result of Goldman's anger at Knopf for issuing a two-volume format. Goldman felt that publishing a book in two volumes during the Depression was irresponsible and that the publication price of $7.50 was prohibitive for potential readers. Her instincts proved correct and the first edition did indeed sell poorly—despite critical acclaim. Knopf chose to limit the number of copies in this edition (and it is correspondingly rare) in reaction to the poor sales of the first edition. With errata slip. This copy is inscribed to Sabina Cohen of Rochester, New York, who attended a city club lecture presented by Emma Goldman. The lecture occurred shortly after Goldman's 90-day return to the United States following a 15-year period of exile. Goldman gave many lectures during her brief tenure in the States.

Book near-fine, with light wear to cloth extremities. Rare dust jacket with light wear and toning to extremities and with a bit of repair to verso. An extremely good copy, most rare inscribed.