In 1977, William Eggleston published *Election Eve*, his first and most elaborate artist's book, containing 100 original prints in two leather-bound volumes housed in a linen slipcase. Published by Caldecot Chubb in New York in an edition of only five, it has since become Eggleston's rarest collectible book. This new edition from Steidl recreates the complete original sequence of photographs in a single volume, making it available to the general public for the first time.
The Eve of the Election contains images taken in October 1976 during Eggleston's pilgrimage from Memphis to the small town of Plains, Georgia, the home of Jimmy Carter, who in November 1976 was elected the 39th president of the United States. Eggleston began photographing even before leaving Memphis, documenting the countryside and surrounding towns of Sumter County before arriving in Plains. His photographs of lonely roads, railroad tracks, cars, gas stations, and houses are mostly empty and form an intuitive and haunting portrait of Plains, radically different from the idealized image later promoted by the media.