Walker Evans produced this remarkable series of clandestine portraits of passengers on the New York City subway between 1938 and 1941. He caught his subjects off guard by strapping a 35mm Contax camera to his chest, with the lens protruding out between two buttons of his overcoat. He operated the shutter with a cable running down the length of his sleeve. He was initially accompanied by fellow photographer Helen Levitt, who acted as both companion and distractor when the need arose.

First edition; small 4to (215 x 174 mm, 8½ x 6¾ in); black and white photographs printed in halftone, light foxing to edges; cream endpapers, lightly toned with photographer Machiel Botman's ownership signature in blue ink on front, black cloth-covered boards, spine and upper side stamped in white, black-and-white photo-illustrated dust-jacket, text in grey and white, chipping to head of spine, nick to lower spine-fold, nick to upper panel top edge and lower panel bottom edge, light rubbing and creasing, errata slip tipped in, near-fine in a very good dust-jacket; [xiv], 178pp

Regards sur un siècle de photographie à travers Le Livre 136; The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century pp180-1; The Photobook: A History I, p253; The Open Book pp218-9; 802 photo books from the Auer Collection p456.