The Orchard Keeper, “Dark Waters” in The Sewanee Review
The University of the South, Sewanee, TN, 1965.
Advance excerpt from The Orchard Keeper in The Sewanee Review, Quarterly, Volume LXXIII, Number 2, Spring 1965 (April-June), pp. 210-216. Softcover, 24 x 15,8 cm., pp.182-343. Powder blue wrappers lettered in black. Price “$ 1.25, $ 5 a year” on the spine. The Sewanee Review bookmark laid in.
CONDITION: very good. Bookmark in fine condition.
Published on first days of April, 1965 at $1.25, in a print run of approximately 3,000 copies.
On November, 1964 Andrew Lytle, The Sewanee Review editor and an Erskine friend since the days of The Southern Review, accepted to host an excerpt of The Orchard Keeper on his review April issue. The title “Dark Waters” was suggested by McCarthy. He received two copies of the magazine by May, 5. The Sewanee Review had around 2,000 subscribers on 1965. More copies were distributed for promotion or single issues sales.
COLLECTING TOPICS: The Sewanee Review issue is much more common than The Yale Review issued one month earlier and includes “Bounty,” another excerpt from The Orchard Keeper. Until the end of 2022, copies could be found easily for $100 or even less. However, after the publication of The Passenger and Stella Maris, and McCarthy’s death a few months later, copies have become increasingly uncommon. Between July 2023 and June 2024, only three copies were available on Abebooks for a price ranging between $375 and $500.
Rare Book Hub registers two copies at auction.
A signed copy, mistakenly described as McCarthy’s first literary appearance, was offered immediately after McCarthy’s death by an American bookdealer at $7,500. However, no provenance was provided and the signature was highly disputable in my opinion. About it see Collecting McCarthy, a Brief History, click here
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