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John Dos Passos (1896-1970) was the
ranking radical prose writer of the 1930s. Already famous
for his Three Soldiers (1921), reflecting his
disillusionment in World War I, and Manhattan
Transfer (1925), an acidulous and powerful portrait
of the prospering metropolis, Dos Passos sealed his
reputation with the imposing trilogy U.S.A., in
which American society is the central figure, with
interesting devices of newspaper headlines and short
character sketches of public figures to establish
atmosphere. Some found the labor leader in The 42nd
Parallel (1930) too idealized and wooden in a rather
slow-moving story, but the breezy heroine of Nineteen
Nineteen (1932) is his most appealing creation, in a
swift and propelling narrative. The Big Money
(1936), of which we show the first edition, portrayed
characters resisting or embracing corruption by Coolidge
prosperity on Wall Street and in Washington, Hollywood,
and academia.
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Introduction
