CULT Classic Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy - Macabre Documentary Americana Photo Archive Editorial 1973 FIRST EDITION Collectible order

First edition of the cult classic--an editorialized archive of photographs and newspaper clippings that presents an engrossing and grotesque portrait of the rural American midwest at the turn of the century.

Lesy, Michael; Warren Susman (intro.)
'Wisconsin Death Trip'

First Edition. New York: Pantheon, 1973. Stated first edition, 1973. Softcover oblong 4to, n.p. Good condition with general handling wear, rubbing to edges, covers starting to curl. "From 1890 to 1910, Charles Van Schaick, the town photographer of a small Wisconsin community, took over 30,000 photographs. The negatives were left after his death, and by this accident of history, an extraordinary picture of a small town under the impact of the Great Depression has proved possible." From the collection of American printmaker Edward August Landon (1911-1984), with his address sticker inside the front cover and old bookseller's pencil notation. Contents bright and unmarked. Cult classic.

"Wisconsin Death Trip... charts numerous sordid, tragic, and bizarre incidents that took place in and around Jackson County, Wisconsin between 1885 and 1900, primarily in the town of Black River Falls. The events are outlined through actual written historical documents—primarily articles published in the town newspaper—with additional narration by Lesy, as order well as excerpts from works by Hamlin Garland, Sinclair Lewis, and Glenway Wescott, which thematically parallel the incidents depicted. The text is accompanied by contemporaneous photographs and portraits taken in Black River Falls by photographer Charles Van Schaick. Thematically, the book emphasizes the harsh aspects of Midwestern rural life under the pressures of crime, pestilence, mental illness, and urbanization.