In the summer of 1936, James Agee and Walker Evans set out on assignment for For
tune magazine to explore the daily lives of sharecroppers in the South. Their jo
urney would prove an extraordinary collaboration and a watershed literary event
when in 1941 LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN was first published to enormous critic
al acclaim. This unsparing record of place, of the people who shaped the land, a
nd of the rhythm of their lives was called intensely moving and unrelentingly ho
nest, and is "renowned for its fusion of social conscience and artistic radicali
ty" (New York Times). Today it stands as a poetic tract of its time, recognized
by the New York Public Library as one of the most influential books of the twent
ieth century. With an elegant new design as well as a sixty-four-page photograph
ic prologue of Evans's classic images, reproduced from archival negatives, this
edition reintroduces the legendary author and photographer to a new generation.
