Description:
Here is the incredibly rare, first edition of "Waiting for Nothing" by Tom Kromer, the classic hardboiled narrative of being on the "bum" during the Great Depression.This is the notorious British edition, first state, with Chapter Four excised and replaced by a five-page apology from the publisher, Constable & Company. It seems that the reference to homosexuality in 1935 was too much of a risk in the publisher's view. (Casciato and West, in their Afterward to "Waiting for Nothing and Other Writings" by University of Georgia Press in 1986, say that Constable later issued an unexpurgated version of the same edition, with Chapter Four included. So this copy is the true first.)
Also featured are an Introduction by Theodore Dreiser, a frontispiece photograph of Kromer (with a classic tissue separator to prevent offsetting), a five-page autobiography by the author, and advertising for other books including Nelson Algren's first novel "Somebody in Boots." None of these features are in the American edition… Read More