LET Us NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN (471 pp.)James Agee, Walker Evans Houghton Mifflin ($6.50).
This remarkable work came close to never seeing print, let alone the literary respectability of a new edition two decades after its first appearance. Originally rejected as an article for FORTUNE, it was expanded into a book, was again turned down, then was finally lured out of a drawer in Greenwich Village by another publisher, who brought it out in 1941. Many reviewers were harsh on Author James Agee. Less than half of the book's 2,500 copies were sold, and the rest were slowly remaindered. But gradually Famous...