Outer Dark, first paperback edition
Ballantine Books, New York, 1970
First paperback edition, first and only printing. Softcover, 17,6 x 10,4 cm., pp. 215. White pictorial wrappers lettered in black and brown, text block edges stained in dark orange. Price of “95 c” on the front cover upper corner.
Inscribed by McCarthy on the title page in black ink and in an early hand: “For Tim + Edythe / Mac”. And signed again “Cormac McCarthy” under the title.
CONDITION: a very good example.
Published in Fall or early Winter 1970, at 95 cents in an unknown number of copies
Random House sold on November, 1968 rights to publication in paperback for The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark to Ballantine Books for $ 7,500. McCarthy received the first copies on December 1970 (Luce, p.198). The book sold modestly, 2558 copies (WP 1,5). The scarcity of copies appeared on the market suggests that the first print run was possibly shorter than that of the Ballantine edition of The Orchard Keeper published on May, 1969.
This is one of only two books by McCarthy signed as “Mac” I came across.
RECIPIENT: inscribed to William Timothy “Tim” Burdine and his wife Edythe Tarwater
PROVENANCE: purchased from an American collector and book dealer in 2022.
COLLECTING TOPICS: this first paperback edition has always been scarcer than its sister edition of The Orchard Keeper. Only one copy, unsigned, was offered on Abe between September, 2022 and July, 2024 at $250.
This is one of only two signed or inscribed copies I have ever come across. The other one, just signed and coming from the estate of McCarthy’s brother William through Brattle Bookshop in Massachusetts, is in a private American collection. As far as I know no alike copies surfaced in the market at least in the past 15 years. Moreover, signed or inscribed copies lack in Kidwell, Murray and Woolmer collections.
Rare Book Hub doesn’t mention copies at auction.
Definitely rare.
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