HOLT, Hamilton, ed.

NY: James Pott & Company, 1906. vii + 299pp. Publisher's blue cloth, gilt stamped to front board and spine; lacking a jacket if issued with one. Light wear to cloth; one pair of leaves near rear roughly opened; super just visible in the gutters between a few of the signatures, though the binding remains quite secure. An attractive, near fine copy. First edition of this important collection of autobiographies by working-class and mostly immigrant Americans at the turn of the twentieth century: a "Polish sweatshop girl," an "Italian bootblack," a "Japanese servant," a "Negro peon," etc. Exploitation, cruelty, and prejudice (including often the authors' own) are common themes. For instance, a French dressmaker is swindled out of her money at Ellis island; a Greek peddled must pay large bribes to the police; a farmer's wife's literary ambitions are stifled by her autocratic husband and small-minded friends. Yet the stories as a whole are recounted with striking equanimity, and are rema