Uncorrected proof of the first edition, so described on the front cover. Softcover, 20.5 × 13.3 cm, 179 numbered pages. White and light blue wrappers lettered in black, white, and light blue. The front cover notes “October 8, 2013” as the tentative publication date and “$14.95” as the tentative price.
First Italian edition, first printing with complete numberlines from 0 to 7 and from 1999 to 2002 on a colophon page bound after the contents page at the end of the book. The page also reads: “Stampato…nel mese di Maggio 1999”. Hardcover, 22.3 x 14.6 cm, 334 numbered pages.
First English paperback edition, first printing, with full number line “987654321” on the copyright page. Softcover, 20.1 × 13 cm. [x], 471, [2] pp. advertisements, [1] order form for Pan books bound at rear.
This is neither a Cormac McCarthy bibliography, as I am not a bibliographer, nor a critical essay, as I am not a scholar. The project started three years ago when I retired. Having more free time, I thought it would be good to catalogue my collection of McCarthy books. However, as I delved into them, I realized that many details about publication, first print runs, different issues, and so on were unknown, not based on strong sources, or even definitely wrong. Moreover, some of the people to whom the books were inscribed were similarly little known and had interesting stories worth telling.
So, I started digging into relevant archives mainly in the United States and England, speaking with McCarthy’s friends, publishers, and scholars, reading critical and biographical essays. What you find on this website is part of this research outcome. It aims just to share with McCarthy lovers, collectors, scholars and book dealers, information which sheds light on some little known aspects of McCarthy’s books history and about people whose lives crossed that of the author of Blood Meridian.
This is obviously a work in progress. In the next weeks, I will add information on all the over 250 items included in my McCarthy collection. Register with your email address to receive notifications about new contents added.
Lastly, English is not my mother tongue, so please be forgiving of any errors you may find in the text. Happy reading.
The opening day is set: Monday, October 27. “It is possible that the first researchers could be looking through boxes with Post-it notes as labels!” jokes Katie Salzman, lead archivist at the Wittliff Collections. That day, after months of preparation, the new Cormac McCarthy papers will be available to scholars at Texas State University in San Marcos.
Uncorrected proof of the first edition, so described on the front cover. Softcover, 20.5 × 13.3 cm, 179 numbered pages. White and light blue wrappers lettered in black, white, and light blue. The front cover notes “October 8, 2013” as the tentative publication date and “$14.95” as the tentative price.
The books by Cormac McCarthy entered the rare books trade and the collecting world very early. As far as we know, McCarthy’s friend Gary Goodman was among the first to trade signed copies of The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark.
On February, 1971 Goodman, having noted a few copies of The Orchard Keeper offered by second hand bookstores for more than the original price, purchased from Random House forty-five copies of Outer Dark and five copies of The Orchard Keeper (probably from the second printing) at a reduced price. He got them signed by McCarthy and resold them at $ 12.50 each. McCarthy was known to a narrow circle at the time and modern firsts market was just starting. Nominal prices were many hundred times lower than those usual today.
“Cormac McCarthy’s Last Outlaws” and “Glanton’s Horse”—two newly released books—are probably going to generate significant discussion. Both are authored by Peter Josyph, the eclectic Cormac McCarthy scholar known for blending genres and thinking outside the box.
A small but interesting collection of Cormac McCarthy’s firsts is for sale at the well known Downtown Brown Books run by Scott Brown. The collection includes nice copies of highlights like Blood Meridian as well as scarce proofs and first English edition. The McCarthy collection, consisting of about thirty items, was part of a huge literature collection gathered in some decades by the Texan attorney Tom Garner. Some of the interest, other then in the quality of the books, lies...
Until a few days ago, only one set of the short stories written by McCarthy during his college years was known to be in private hands. Now, two other sets, in exceptional condition, have surfaced, thanks to the passion and the book-hunting skills of a collector from Knoxville, Peyton Gupton.
A few days ago, just after Vanity Fair published the article about the love affair between Cormac McCarthy and Augusta Britt, the book dealer and researcher Scott Brown, complained that no photos of them together were provided to support the story. Here are two of them.