A travel through a McCarthy first editions collection

BLOOD MERIDIAN, A RARE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION INSCRIBED TO A FRIEND

Blood Meridian, first English edition, inscribed to Philip Murray.

Blood Meridian, first English edition

Picador, London, 1989

First English edition, first and only printing with complete number line from 9 to 1 on the copyright page. Hardcover, 22x 14,5 cm., 337 numbered pages. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in white on the spine. White dust jacket lettered in red and black  with a wraparound illustration by George Sharp. Price of “U.K. £11.95” on the back flap. Blurbs by Michael Herr on the dustjacket front panel and by The New York Times Book Review, Stanley Booth and Alan Cheuse on the front flap (APG 005d).

Inscribed in blue ballpoint pen by McCarthy on the title page to his friend and collector Philip Murray: “For Philip Murray / All best wishes / Cormac McCarthy”.

CONDITION: a very good example with spine slant, pinpoint foxing to the text block edge and minor wear to the dustjacket.

PROVENANCE: from the Murray collection (FM, lot 723), purchased from the Birmingham book dealer First and Fine in 2020.

Published on March 10, 1989, at £11.95, 3,000 copies printed.  


This is the first of McCarthy’s book published by Picador. The date of publication and the first print run number come from the publisher papers that I referenced.

SUPPOSED BOOKPLATED ISSUE:  APG notes copies with a “bookplate signed by McCarthy affixed to title page. Produced either for private distribution to the British trade or released that way by Waterstones” (005d). One of these copies was offered by Snowden Books in 2008 for $ 2,500 with a letter attesting that it was one of an unknown number of copies signed via a bookplate issued by the publisher. In spite of that, Peter Straus, a notable figure in the British publishing industry and former publisher at Picador, confirmed that bookplate issues were produced by Picador for only two McCarthy’s titles: The Crossing and The Road. The bookplate glued to the Blood Meridian copy most likely came from the batch for The Crossing. So, the copies of earlier titles with the bookplates affixed to raise their value, Blood Meridian included, must not be considered a book separate issue and, in my opinion, are not of significant interest for the collector. 

COLLECTING TOPICS: a few copies simply signed by McCarthy with no strong provenance appeared in the market in the past. Two of them were offered by American dealer in 2019 and 2020 for $4,000 and $4,800. Two others were listed in October, 2024 on Abebooks. One, almost certainly authentic, was priced at $20,000. The other instead, listed at $9,800 showed a disputable signature.

Copies with strong provenance and inscribed to known people are obviously different fish. They are rare. The only one I am aware but this, is a copy signed by McCarthy to the Picador publisher Peter Straus.

Blood Meridian, first English edition, the title page with the inscription to Murray.
Blood Meridian, first English edition, copyright page

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