THE PASSENGER & STELLA MARIS: THE REFINED PICADOR SIGNED LIMITED EDITION

*The Passenger & Stella Maris, Picador limited edition*.

The Passenger & Stella Maris, limited signed English edition

Picador, London, 2022

First English signed limited edition, first printing. Number 58 of 250 sets. Two volumes. Hardcover 24.5 x 18 cm., 383 + 189 numbered pages with numbers appearing only on odd-numbered pages. Publisher’s red cloth (The Passenger) and turquoise cloth (Stella Maris), both lettered in black. Photographic endpapers by Tony Arruza/Getty Images (The Passenger) and Lauren Lee/Stocks (Stella Maris). Silk bookmark ribbons. Promotional bookmark included. No dust jackets as issued. Housed in black-and-yellow cloth-covered box, lettered in blind, black-on-black. Wrapped in tissue paper. Housed in an outer beige cardboard box, lettered in black.

Both volumes signed by McCarthy in black ballpoint pen.

CONDITION: books and box are as new. Upper left corner of the outer card box is bumped, making it near fine

Published on December 6, 2022, at £150, in a limited run of 250 sets.

The Picador edition precedes the signed American slipcased edition by three days. It is more refined and valuable, than the Knopf edition, which is not numbered and less meticulously finished. Bookdealer and friend Benjamin Mierkalns provided me the following information: one hundred and fifty sets only were allocated to Waterstones. They were kept in a locked room and were strictly distributed via the list that had been compiled from the limited online sale to Waterstones Plus Members. The remaining 100 were allocated by Picador agents to other bookshops, mainly independent.

COLLECTING TOPICS: copies of this edition are relatively available. Two copies sold at Pba Galleries on July and September, 2023, for $1,625 each. A third copy in July sold for $2,195. In November, 2024, copies in fine condition could be easily obtained for prices in a range between $2,000-$2,500.