The Inaugural Address of 1933.

ROOSEVELT, Franklin.

Item Number: 4470

First and only edition Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first Inaugural address, a call to arms for the Nation in the face of the Great Depression. Octavo, original printed gray string tied paper wrappers. In very good with light soiling to front wrapper. Copies of any of the three states of the Harbor Press edition are exceptionally rare (10 copies bound in scarlet calfskin were issued to Roosevelt and his closest advisors, followed by 30 unnumbered copies in green cloth, and the 150 in gray wrappers).

The Harbor Press edition of Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address was taken from a stenographic transcript and thus incorporated the many last-minute changes Roosevelt made to his text. It "is therefore the first appearance in book form of the First Inaugural as listeners actually heard it delivered" (Halter, p.107). The elegant design of this publication is characteristic of the work of John S. Fass (1890-1973), who co-founded the Harbor Press with Roland Wood (1896-1980) in 1925. Roosevelt greatly admired the quality of their work, and over the course of the 1930s they published several Limited Edition Club versions of English and American classics.