Daughter of the Revolution

John Reed will always be remembered for his classic eye witness account of the Russian Revolution Ten Days That Shook The World

But Reed was also a socialist activist, one of the architects of the communist movement in the United States, and an incendiary journalist and writer.

Daughter of the Revolution was one of his very few works of fiction.

But his brilliantly told short stories summon up a world of political and personal conflict, and illustrate the ideas and causes he spent his life fighting for.

In the title work ‘Daughter of the Revolution, a young American encounters the French prostitute Marcelle in a bar in Paris – home of the revolutionary spirit. Her grandfather had died in one of the many French uprisings. Marcelle has no sympathy with the revolutionary cause, and yet is herself a victim of the capitalist system, forced to sell herself to survive.

Flitting from Mexico to Europe and back again to New York, Reed’s stories are a fascinating portrait of a fragmented world on the brink of change.