Blood Meridian, uncorrected proof. Random House, New York, 1984. Uncorrected proof of the first edition. Softcover, 21 x 13,8 cm., 227 numbered pages. First state, lacking the publisher’s label taped to the front cover. Yellow wrappers, lettered in black on the spine and front panel, marked: “Uncorrected Proof”. Housed in a blue cloth and leather custom-made clamshell box, with gilt lettering. (APG 005a, FM, lot 724).
Blood Meridian, first Folio edition. The Folio Society Ltd, London, 2022. First Folio edition, first printing with “First printing 2022” on the copyright page. Hardcover, 22,9 x 14,9 cm, 301 numbered pages. Publisher’s red, black and grey paper covered pictorial boards lettered in grey and white, with an illustration by Gerard DuBois who provided also the black and white illustration on the title page and six color illustrations throughout the book. Housed in a plain black paper covered slipcase. The...
Blood Meridian, first edition. Random House, New York, 1985. First edition, first and only Random House printing with “First Edition” on the copyright page. Hardcover, 21,5 x 14,5 cm, 337 numbered pages. Publisher’s red paper-covered boards and darker red cloth spine, lettered in gilt. Dark red dustjacket by Richard Adelson, lettered in brighter red, featuring “The Phantom Cart” by Salvador Dalì on the front panel and a photo of the author by Mark Morrow on the back. Price of “$17.95”...
This is neither a Cormac McCarthy bibliography, as I am not a bibliographer, nor a critical essay, as I am not a scholar. The project started three years ago when I retired. Having more free time, I thought it would be good to catalogue my collection of McCarthy books. However, as I delved into them, I realized that many details about publication, first print runs, different issues, and so on were unknown, not based on strong sources, or even definitely wrong. Moreover, some of the people to whom the books were inscribed were similarly little known and had interesting stories worth telling.
So, I started digging into relevant archives mainly in the United States and England, speaking with McCarthy’s friends, publishers, and scholars, reading critical and biographical essays. What you find on this website is part of this research outcome. It aims just to share with McCarthy lovers, collectors, scholars and book dealers, information which sheds light on some little known aspects of McCarthy’s books history and about people whose lives crossed that of the author of Blood Meridian.
This is obviously a work in progress. In the next weeks, I will add information on all the over 250 items included in my McCarthy collection. Register with your email address to receive notifications about new contents added.
Lastly, English is not my mother tongue, so please be forgiving of any errors you may find in the text. Happy reading.
Il tagliapietre (The Stonemason), first Italian edition. Einaudi, Torino, 2025. First Italian edition, first printing with complete number lines from 0 to 5 and to 2025 to 2029, and “Stampato […] nel mese di gennaio 2025” on a colophon page bound after the text at the rear of the book. Hardcover, 18.5 x 12.5 cm, 135 numbered pages.
The books by Cormac McCarthy entered the rare books trade and the collecting world very early. As far as we know, McCarthy’s friend Gary Goodman was among the first to trade signed copies of The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark.
On February, 1971 Goodman, having noted a few copies of The Orchard Keeper offered by second hand bookstores for more than the original price, purchased from Random House forty-five copies of Outer Dark and five copies of The Orchard Keeper (probably from the second printing) at a reduced price. He got them signed by McCarthy and resold them at $ 12.50 each. McCarthy was known to a narrow circle at the time and modern firsts market was just starting. Nominal prices were many hundred times lower than those usual today.