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The source for the date of publication is the editorial fact sheet in The Ecco Press Records held in the New York Public Library (B32, F15). The source for the first print run is a handwritten note, probably by Daniel Halpern, on a letter sent to him by Howard Woolmer on January 17, 1994 (EP records, B32, F12). 

Offset print of the Random House first edition (Woolmer).

ADVANCE COPIES: not noted on the market.

HALPERN, ECCO PRESS AND MCCARTHY: Daniel Halpern has been an influential publisher and poet for more than fifty years and he still is. Halpern was born in Syracuse, New York, on September 11, 1945. He studied at San Francisco State College, California State at Northridge and received an MFA from Columbia University. He is the author of nine books of poetry and two cookbooks. From 1975 to 1995, Halpern taught in Columbia University’s graduate writing program. He has also taught at Princeton University. 

In 1970, Halpern co-founded with the writer Paul Bowles, the literary magazine Antaeus. Reportedly, Halpern had met Bowles at a party at California State Northridge when he was asked if he wanted to start a magazine. Halpern soon moved to Tangier, Morocco, and launched Antaeus which he edited for 25 years. In 1971, Halpern moved back to the United States. Antaeus was low on funds, and Drue Heinz, an heiress of Heinz Ketchup, met with Halpern and agreed to finance the magazine on the condition that Halpern run a literary press that she had wanted to start. Halpern agreed, and The Ecco Press was created. The name was taken from Heinz’s favorite dog. Heinz was publisher of Ecco Press, and Halpern editor-in-chief, until 1991, when Heinz retired, transferring ownership and control to Halpern. Ecco Press remained an independent small-trade firm, although affiliated with publishers Viking Press and W.W. Norton & Company for sales and distribution, known for presenting distinguished new works in international poetry and fiction, until its acquisition by HarperCollins in 1999.

Beginning with its Summer 1975 issue, Antaeus published a series titled “Neglected Books of the Twentieth Century,” in which poets, fiction writers and publishers nominated titles they considered neglected. This series eventually led Halpern, in the early 1980s, to begin publishing a line with the same title of paperback reissues under his The Ecco Press label.

In an email to me sent on January 14, 2024, Dan Halpern recalled his first running into McCarthy’s work: “In Antaeus I did a list of Neglected Books of the 20th Century and a couple of people mentioned The Orchard Keeper, so I was curious and read it. And fell in love with McCarthy writing. Contacted Random House editor, Albert Erskine, and asked if I could buy paperback rights to all the early novels. They sent me the manuscript of Suttree, for an excerpt in Antaeus”. The advance copy of Suttree was sent by Robin Straus, subsidiary rights administrator at Random House, on July 26, 1978. The license agreement for The Orchard Keeper, was signed by Random and Ecco on October 27th, 1981, and completed on December, 1, and it stated an advance of $ 500 payable “upon signing hereof” and 7,5% as royalties. (EP records, B32, F12, F15). 

In spite of that, McCarthy apparently didn’t know anything about the publishing of The Orchard Keeper by Ecco Press until some months after it had been put out. A letter by him to the publisher, undated but datable not before the beginning of 1983, reads: “Dear Ecco Press. Recently, I came across a copy of a book you had published (The Orchard Keeper) and I wonder if I could order about a dozen copies from you at – I hope – a discount”. This tells a lot about how McCarthy used to live without tight ties to his publishers with the exception of Albert Erskine and Bertha Krantz. Once he had received his copies though, he liked them very much and a longtime relationship with Ecco started. It had to bring, ten years later, the publication by Ecco of The Stonemason and The Gardener’s Son. In a letter to his friend Orin Borsten on November 19, 1984 he wrote: “My books have been re-issued in paperback by Ecco Press and they look good and seem to be in the stores” (Borsten). McCarthy’s opinion was even better about the reissue of Blood Meridian. In another letter, undated but datable on March, 1986, he thanked them for the “very handsome” copy of his western he had received. And again, a few weeks later, he mentions the opinion of Bertha Krantz about the Ecco edition: “extremely handsome” and adds that possibly she likes it better than the Random House hardcover first edition published one years earlier.

PROVENANCE: purchased from an American dealer in 2024.

COLLECTING TOPICS: This title’s spine is apparently prone to fade. So, copies in truly collectable condition are becoming uncommon. 

While I have seen a few signed or inscribed copies of the second printing, I couldn’t locate any of the first printing. I am inclined to think they are very scarce. 

Rare Book Hub doesn’t mention copies at auction.