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.
No Country for Old men, Trice signed limited edition, Deluxe state. B. E. Trice, New Orleans, 2005. First limited edition, only printing. Deluxe state, number 12 out of 75 copies. Hardcover, 23,2 x 15,4 cm, 310 numbered pages. Publisher’s burgundy half morocco, marbled paper boards, spine lettered in gilt, single gilt rule on covers, brown endpapers.
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 post that shares the story of how the collector Nate Cooley uncovered several copies of Suttree and Blood Meridian and a denim jacket that may have belonged to Cormac McCarthy, has raised great interest along with some questions. Peter Josyph - artist, McCarthy scholar, author of three amazing books about him, and friend - has expressed doubts about the source and legitimacy of the material related to McCarthy acquisition.
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.
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.
A small but interesting collection of Cormac McCarthy’s firsts is for sale at the well known Downtown Brown Books run by Scott Brown. The collection includes nice copies of highlights like Blood Meridian as well as scarce proofs and first English edition. The McCarthy collection, consisting of about thirty items, was part of a huge literature collection gathered in some decades by the Texan attorney Tom Garner. Some of the interest, other then in the quality of the books, lies…
Until a few days ago, only one set of the short stories written by McCarthy during his college years was known to be in private hands. Now, two other sets, in exceptional condition, have surfaced, thanks to the passion and the book-hunting skills of a collector from Knoxville, Peyton Gupton.
A few days ago, just after Vanity Fair published the article about the love affair between Cormac McCarthy and Augusta Britt, the book dealer and researcher Scott Brown, complained that no photos of them together were provided to support the story. Here are two of them.
Three weeks ago Texas State University’s Wittliff Collections announced that it had expanded its archives dedicated to Cormac McCarthy, adding 36 banker’s boxes filled with his personal journals, photos, letters, and drafts of unpublished novels, coming from the McCarthy’s estate. Now, another key achievement is close to being completed: the university and Anne De Lisle are close to reaching an agreement for the letters that McCarthy wrote to his second wife. There is a strong chance that they will be…