Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. Single volume, measuring 8.25 x 5.5 inches: viii, 277, [1]. Original ivory boards and red cloth spine lettered in silver, original unclipped ivory dust jacket printed in red and black. Ink inscription to front free endpaper: “To Ruth / Best wishes / from / Jessica Mitford.” Light shelfwear.
Inscribed first edition of Jessica Mitford’s collected investigative journalism. Mitford opens with a strategic guide to muckraking, informed by decades of experience, and honed in conversation with her college students: “I do try to cultivate the appearance of objectivity, mainly through the technique of understatement, avoidance where possible of editorial comment, above all letting the undertakers, or the Spock prosecutors, or the prison administrators pillory themselves through their own pronouncements.” For each article, she provides the context of the assignment and the impact of publication. Contents include the 1958 essay that became The American Way of Death, a book that did for funeral homes what Upton Sinclair did for meatpacking; a 1962 Southern travelogue that ends with the destruction of Mitford’s car outside a Freedom Riders rally in Montgomery; her 1970 takedown of Bennett Cerf’s Famous Writers School, a genteel mail-order racket; and her account of her 1973 stint at San Jose State, where she was “de-hired” over her refusal to take a loyalty oath and be fingerprinted. A near-fine inscribed copy.
Price: $250.00