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This is a first edition wrapped in the famous and controversial “4 blurbs” dustjacket. It differs from the much more common first issue dustjacket which usually accompanies the first trade edition of the book in several ways:                                                                                                                         

• it is shorter than the other, and the white stripe at bottom is narrower.

• the capital “A” on the front flap is grey instead of green.               

• the blurbs on the back panel are four instead of five, lacking that by Publishers Weekly.

• the Barry Lopez review differs slightly. The 4 blurb dustjacket reads: “Cormac McCarthy’s supple and stunning language, the breadth in his characters, his sense of the physicality of the landscape, an evocation of biblical themes to which he is equal, and a pure gift for conveyance distinguish him altogether as a contemporary writer almost without equal. In All the Pretty Horses he enters new country. The ride is exhilarating, the journey fetching, haunting and drain-ing, like any step worth taking. However, the first issue dustjacket reads: “Cormac McCarthy’s supple and stunning language, the breadth in his characters, his sense of the physicality of landscape, an evocation of biblical themes to which he is equal, and a pure gift for conveyance distinguish him as a contemporary writer almost without equal. In All the Pretty Horses he enters new country. The ride is exhilarating, the journey fetching, haunting, and draining, like any great step worth taking.”     

FIRST ISSUE OR TRIAL DUSTJACKET? 

AGP describes the examples with four blurbs like this, as “presumed first issue dustjacket”. So the more common dustjacket with five blurbs would be the second issue. 

AGP was published in 2004. Since then, this has become a common belief among book dealers and collectors of McCarthy. This opinion seems to be supported by the guy who sold me my copy, a former book dealer in Seattle, who recalled it was part of a batch of the first trade edition copies arrived to his bookstore. However, he was not able to explain why the dust jacket on my copy shows a crease along the spine which suggests that it was folded once and perhaps shipped folded as a trial dust jacket sent out for promotion or other purposes. 

There are many clues which lead me to disagree with describing the 4 blurbs as the first issue dustjacket. First, it is worth noting that even Allen and Patricia Hearn had doubts about it. They reported that the collector Michael Bernstein told them that McCarthy’s agent told him that this was a proof or trial dustwrapper that was never actually issued. That was also the opinion of a skilled dealer like Ken Lopez, who wrote: “We are increasingly convinced, however, that the earlier jacket that has been reported was a trial, or proof, jacket of some sort that was never actually issued”. Additionally, Howard Woolmer, in his working papers on a bibliography of McCarthy, noted that all the review copies he (and I) had seen were wrapped in a five blurbs dustjacket. It means that the five blurbs wrappers were ready well before the publication of the first trade edition.

On the other hand, an email sent to me on February 18, 2024 by Gary Fisketjon, the editor at Knopf of All the Pretty Horses, attests that the 4 blurbs jackets were intended not for in-house or promotional use, but to be the actual dustjackets in which the first edition had to be wrapped. He writes:

“Those 4 blurbs jackets were used on the first printing and then the Publishers Weekly was added. The 4 blurbs included Peter Matthiessen, Jim Harrison, Shelby Foote, and Barry Lopez. Shelby was a great friend of Cormac’s, though the others were my friends as well as Cormac fans. As to why the 4 blurb first printings are so rare, I can only imagine that we revised the jacket before all of the initial 25,000 copies had come off the press”.

So, they were intended not for in-house or promotional use, but to be the actual dustjackets in which the first edition had to be wrapped. That is why they are not “trial” or “proof” dustjacket”.

We don’t know wether copies in 4 blurbs dustjacket hit the market or not. All we know is that the publisher replaced the dustjacket before the publication, as Fisketjon suggests. I can add that even if a few copies of the first trade edition were mistakenly sent out wrapped in the 4 blurbs dustjacket, that is not enough to describe it as the “first issue dustjacket”. To do so, is necessary that the publisher consciously sends out the books wrapped in that kind of dustjacket and then, after the publication, for any reason, decide to replace it with a different dustjacket. This is not the case. Changes which occur before the publication are usually called “states”.

The controversy is even more complicated by the fact that an actual, earlier, trial dustjacket does exist, even if it is little known. It is identical to the 4 blurbs dustjacket except that it was produced in matte paper instead of glossy paper and that features a stamp “Proof” on the verso. An All the Pretty Horses proof in beige covers, set out for review or promotional purposes,  is wrapped in it. There is no absolute certainty it is genuine, as I will discuss elsewhere. However, if it were, the correct chronological description of the All the Pretty Horses dustjackets, in my opinion, would be as follows:

• Trial dustjacket: 4 blurbs, matte paper.

• First state dustjacket: 4 blurbs, glossy paper, replaced before the first trade edition publication.

• First issue dustjacket: 5 blurbs, glossy paper, sent out with the first trade edition copies.

FORGERIES: a forged copy of All the Pretty Horses first edition in an equally forged 4 blurbs dustjacket was noted.  

COLLECTING TOPICS: Howard Woolmer, in the mid-90s, told he had not seen any copy and there isn’t a copy in his collection. APG, in 2004, quoted only two copies owned by the collectors Michael Bernstein and Dennis Bohn. I have seen three others since. In 2010 two copies surfaced on the market: I purchased one of them which is the one I am describing here. In 2014 I bought another copy, in very good condition, from Biblio Baggins, Boulder, Colorado, which is now part of the Paul Ford collection. The book dealer told me that he had seen the two copies for sale on 2010 and none since. On September, 2016 a fine copy went at auction at Heritage for $2,500 and remained unsold. Finally, I was offered a fine copy by Beth Fisher of Quill & Brush on 2018 for $3,500. I suppose it was the same actioned by Heritage. As far as I know, no other copies are in the main private collections. This brings the total to five to seven known copies, with none appearing on the market in the past six years. Describing it as very scarce or rare is just a matter of words, I guess.