The Orchard Keeper, “Bounty. A Story” in the Yale Review Yale University Press, New Haven, 1965. Advance excerpt from The Orchard Keeper in The Yale Review A National Quarterly, Volume LIV, No. 3, Spring 1965, with “Published in March 1965” on contents page, Softcover, 23 x 16,3 cm., pp. XLVIII, 321-480. Powder blue wrappers lettered in black. Price “$1.5 A Copy, $5 A Year” on the spine. The excerpt is at the pages 368-374. CONDITION: a very good example. Published...
Outer Dark, first The Ecco Press edition. The Ecco Press, New York, 1984. First The Ecco Press edition, first and only printing with no mention of further printings on the copyright page. Softcover, 20.4 x 13.7 cm, 242 numbered pages. Publisher’s turquoise and yellow pictorial wrappers with black spine and white back panel, lettered in white, turquoise, and black, by Saksa Art & Design, Inc. Price of “$7.50” on the back panel.
Suttree, ”Burial” in Antaeus. The Ecco Press, New York, 1978. Advance excerpt from Suttree in Antaeus, 32, Winter 1979, pp. 87-100. Softcover, 22.9 x 17.1 cm, 114 numbered pages. Publisher’s ivory wrappers lettered in red and black, designed by Sandra Stone, with a black pencil portrait of a girl on the front cover. Price “$3.50” on the front panel.
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.
The Road, graphic novel, adapted by Manu Larcenet, first American edition. Abrams ComicArts, New York, 2024. First American edition, first printing with full number line (10987654321) on the copyright page, bound after the contents pages. Hardcover, 26.5 x 21.8 cm, 164 unnumbered pages. Publisher’s grey thick cardboard covers lettered in white on the spine.
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.