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The letter reads in full: 

 “Dear Bert

Here your bookplate, which of course I’m delighted to sign for you. Thanks for your corrections. I hope you understand that they are always welcome. Copy editors are becoming about as rare as any other form of literate life and my offer still stands to hire you to read the next book – and/or any future books. I’ll talk to you soon.

Much love 

Cormac”.

Bertha Krantz was a longtime and highly praised copyeditor at Random House who had worked on Suttree and Blood Meridian but also on the three earlier McCarthy’s works (see Khatarine Salzmann, Letters and Correspondence, in Cormac McCarthy in context, edited by Steven Frye, Cambridge University Press, 2000). 

Gary Fisketjon, one of the most influential publishing industry figure and editor of McCarthy, in an email sent to me on February 12, 2024 remembered: 

”When I arrived at Random House as an editorial assistant in 1978, Albert was working primarily at his home in Connecticut and rarely came into the office, where I was fortunate to spend time with Bert Krantz. For many years she was for Albert an essential associate; she had excellent literary taste, knew Random House as well as anyone I ever met, and gave me valuable advice once I became involved with Cormac, a friend of hers for a long time”. 

And Daniel R. King, in his book “Cormac McCarthy Literary Evolution”, adds: 

“Krantz was another of McCarthy’s supporters at Random House, taking, as Erskine had before her, special care over his work. In her first letter to McCarthy, Krantz says that having the job of copy editing Suttree ‘is not a bad deal to be paid for…because I’m having a fantastic time with it’ […] Krantz’s enthusiastic and extremely thorough approach to copy editing meant that McCarthy was almost as prepared to listen to her ideas as he was to Erskine’s suggestions, recognizing her as a valuable ally, and someone possessed of the kind of perfectionism and attention to detail he valued in Erskine” (King, p. 77). 

Krantz retired in 1989 and moved to Mount Dora, Florida, where she passed away in 2003. The letter was written just eight days after the publication of All the Pretty Horses. Even in retirement, Krantz professionally read All the Pretty Horses and the affectionate letter thanks her for working on the book that propelled McCarthy into the stratosphere of literary stardom and shows the great trust the writer had in her.  

The topic of cultural decline was not new in McCarthy’s view. In a letter to Orin Borsten post marked February 21, 1984 he notices that “…literature and appreciation of it continue to disappear…”. Two years later, he more extensively writes: “Twenty years ago I just don’t think there was space allocated to the reviewing of mystery novels and gothic romances. As literature slowly vanishes – nature abhorring a vacuum – it’s inevitable that more & more genre and popular novels will be taken more and more seriously” (February 25, 1986).  

PROVENANCE: purchased from Heritage Auctions on April, 2011.

COLLECTING TOPICS: Two autograph letters signed and an autograph postcard to Bertha Krantz sold at Heritage auctions in 2018 for $2,625. They were friendly letters on a variety of topics but not of literary interest.

Letters by McCarthy are not particularly rare in spite of many of them being held in institutions. Rare Book Hub lists 30 of them gone at auction (besides the 17 in the correspondence between McCarthy and the writer John Fergus Ryan). Of course, they are different in length and in contents. Letters with such an interesting association are scarce.