Ken magazine – First 18 Issues, 1938.

Item Details

Chicago, Ken Inc., 1938

Ken magazine – First 18 Issues, 1938.

 Chicago: Ken, Inc, 1938, approx.13.x10” stapled wrappers, 36-138pp each issue; BOUND IN TWO HARDBOUND VOLUMES, original covers retained, blue cloth, gilt titles on spine.  Apr-June 1938 and July-Dec 1938. [Containing in all, Vol 1 No. 1 through Volume 2 No. 11]

Ken was a short-lived news and feature magazine founded, in part, to convince Americans to support the Republican faction in the Spanish Civil War. It was published bi-weekly between April 1938-August 1939 and utilized full page photo spreads, pointed graphics, and articles, opinion, and commentary by a variety of leftist writers and artists.  The magazine is notable for having published fourteen [14] of Ernest Hemingway’s dispatches from the Spanish Civil War, beginning with its first issue of April 7, 1938 [containing his anti-Mussolini article "The Time Now, The Place Spain").  Some issues also contain photographs later credited to Hemingway.  All issues feature caricature and editorial cartoons by Sam Berman, David Low, George Grosz, Al Hirschfeld, William Gropper, and others.

Several issues contain anti-fascist maps that have since become collectible items themselves, including several by John Groth.  See e.g.: https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/05/anti-fascist-maps-from-a-1930s-magazine.html

The magazine was investigated in 1938 by the House Un-American Activities Committee for being Communist leaning.  Founding editor Arnold Gingrich testified with language equally germane today:

“I would like … to point out that democracy in America is now on the defensive…… Anybody who can read without moving his lips realizes that democracies at the present moment are showing what looks like a case of sprained, if not a broken, back.” Gingrich went on to offer the committee evidence, gathered in the course of reporting pieces for Ken, of fascist activity in the United States.

Ex-Libris screenwriter/director Walter Reisch [Ninotchka, Gaslight, Niagra, Titanic] with his bookplate on front pastedowns.

CONDITION: Good; all maps present. Moderate wear to covers with scuff marks to boards and spine.  Issues Good to Very Good with 1” open tear to rear cover of issue 1, some browning to page margins.   The legends at bottom of some of the front covers and full-page photo spreads appear to have been trimmed about ¼”.  Unclear whether these are printing flaws, or the issues were trimmed slightly for binding.  The margins of pages containing text appear to be normal.