The Making of an American [INSCRIBED Presentation Copy to William W. J. Warren, Stationer and Riis's Next-Door Neighbor in Richmond Hill, Brooklyn]

New York: Macmillan and Co., 1901. Book. Near Fine. Decorative Cloth. Signed by Author(s). 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Gray cloth, lettered/illus. in black. Light shelf wear, minor soiling to cover cloth, text block edges a bit toned by age. Firm binding, clean interior. xiii,443 pp., illus. w/ b&w photographic plates, drawings in text. 14th ptg.: Nov. 1908. Notably well preserved presentation copy, showing a pastedown, 4" x 3.5", mounted on front fixed endpaper, inscribed "Faithfully yours / Jacob A. Riis / Christmas 1909." Mounted on the adjacent front flyleaf is the calling card of the recipient, Mr. William W. J. Warren, inscribed as follows: "Christmas 1909. -- / Mr. Riss [sic] called today -- / he gave me his autograph / for front cover of book." Also signed by a later owner, William Duncan, along top edge of front flyleaf. Warren is mentioned on p. 435 of Riis's text (as W. W. J. Warren, "faithful in good and in evil report," among the author's concluding acknowledgments), where a second calling card (stained by rust from a paper clip, no long present) is laid in (pp. 435-440 are slightly indented from the clip, and pp. 434, 440 and 441 show a light rust impression). According to his obituary in American Stationer & Office Manager (Vol. 88), Warren (1844-1921) was president of Stewart, Warren & Co., a stationery manufacturing firm located at 129 Lafayette St. in New York, a personal friend of Henry Ward Beecher, and lived in the Richmond Hill section of Brooklyn as the next-door neighbor of Riis until the latter moved to Barre, MA, where he died in 1914. Original illustrated edition of an influential autobiography by the pioneering documentarian photographer and social reformer whose "How the Other Half Lives" was a landmark expose of living conditions in the Lower East Side tenements that led to reforms and provided Riis with an international reputation..