On September 11 1973, with the support of the CIA, General Augusto Pinochet headed a coup d'état, which successfully overthrew the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende. Wessing, a former assistant of Ed van der Elsken and Ato Kando, took the first plane he could board to Chile and took these photographs in the immediate aftermath.

On his return to the Netherlands, Wessing assembled a book dummy and contacted Geert Lubberhuizen, who had started a publishing house in 1943 as a clandestine operation during the German occupation. De Bezige Bij became the publisher of choice for the most influential authors in the Netherlands, and Lubberhuizen, having noticed the impact of the photographs in the press, immediately set to work publishing the book. Chili September 1973 was issued exactly as Wessing had envisaged, with no introductory text or captions, perhaps only a month after the coup.

First edition; 4to (247 x 200 mm, 9¾ x 7¾ in); black-and-white photographs printed in offset; tan printed wire stitched wrappers, toning and light stain to covers, slight vertical cockling, light wear along spine, a very good copy; [48]pp.

Photography Between Covers pp117-9; The Photobook A History I, p229; 802 photo books from the M + M Auer collection p562; The Dutch Photobook pp124-5; Errata Editions: Books on Books no.8.