Emma Goldman

My Disillusionment in Russia [Personal copy of US Senator and progressive educator Woodbridge Nathan Ferris]

Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, and Company, 1923. First Edition, stated. Hardcover octavo (5-1/4 x 7-1/2 inches). Burgundy cloth with titles stamped in gilt to top board and spine. 242pp. First Edition of Emma Goldman's book regarding her deportation from the United States to Russia and her critiques and dissatisfaction there with the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which she witnessed in her two years there (1920-1921). The book was published without much of the content she had prepared for it, and so a second volume was issued the following year, titled My Further Disillusionment in Russia. Lithuanian-born anarchist Emma Goldman (1869-1940) emigrated to the United States in 1885 and went on to become "the most dangerous woman in America" for her firebrand oration, writing, publishing, and deeds all under the banner and towards the achievement of her revolutionary anarchist philosophy.

This copy bears the ownership inscription of Woodbridge Nathan Ferris (1853-1928), a progressive educator who in 1884 founded a co-educational post-secondary vocational school, open to all, which became Ferris State University. As a progressive Democrat he was twice elected governor of Michigan (1912 and 1914) and in 1922 was elected to the US Senate, a role he kept until his death in 1928 and which he certainly held at the time he acquired this book. Good. A bit shaken; otherwise square; boards soiled and edgeworn; contents clean. Item #3689

Price: $1,000.00