2 volumes, 8vo. Original black cloth (light rubbing to spines); original dust jackets (some chipping to edges); publisher's slipcase (light rubbing, toning, some chipping to edges).

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with Boni & Liveright imprint. An American Tragedy was banned in Boston and in Nazi Germany over sexual content, abortion, and murder; in the 1930 Massachusetts obscenity trial Clarence Darrow argued in the book's defense that "You can't make all the literature in this world for the benefit of three year-old children...We cannot print all our literature for the weak-minded and very immature." Blanck 152.