Let Us Have Faith.
Inscribed to President and Mrs. Roosevelt
As A Gift To Commemorate The Historic Third Electoral Victory
Keller, Helen. Let us Have Faith. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1940.
8vo.; endpapers offset; green cloth; stamped in blind; slight soiling to upper cover; spine sunned; stamped in black; dust-jacket. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
First edition; with Eleanor Roosevelt’s bookplate on the front pastedown and a small Eleanor Roosevelt estate sticker numbered 463 above it. A sensational presentation copy, connecting three of the most influential and beloved figures of the 20th century; inscribed on the front endpaper: To President and Mrs. Roosevelt, Whose sublime faith in the People is a new hope for Democracy. Affectionately, Helen Keller, November 23rd 1940. Keller’s inscription, as is always the case, is in pencil; she pressed so forcefully on the paper that the words left a ghost of an imprint on the next leaf. President Roosevelt had been elected to a third term less than three weeks before this inscription was written.
Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt’s paths had crossed, briefly, before. Prior to FDR’s first inauguration as President in 1933, Keller wrote to him: “We have met only twice for a moment, but I have been drawn to you by your earnest, constructive efforts in behalf of the unprivileged, and since Election Day I have felt the bond of sympathy grow stronger and stronger between us. I cannot tell you with what pride and satisfaction I have followed your courageous activities.” In 1965, Keller and Eleanor were two of twenty electees into the Women’s Hall of Fame at the New York World’s Fair; both women received the most votes among the other nominees.
Published at the outset of World War II, Let us Have Faith is one of Keller’s 14 publications. As described on the dust-jacket, the book is Keller’s “message of hope for a world where men and nations are defeated, or frightened at the prospect of defeat. It is a reaffirmation of faith in the future of mankind, in the ability of men by faith to conquer despair and tyranny, and to create out of faith better lives for themselves and a better world for others….Let us Have Faith reveals the creed through which Helen Keller was herself saved from a lifetime of darkness and silence.”
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