The Border Trilogy
Knopf/Everyman’s Library, New York, 1999
First collected edition, first printing with no mention of reprint on the copyright page. Issued as No. 261 in Everyman’s Library. Hardcover, 21 x 12.8 cm, 301 + 425 + 291 numbered pages. Publisher’s red cloth with a black box lettered in gold on the spine. Gilt silk bookmark sewn into the book. Dustjacket in red and black striped sepia, flaps and back panel white, priced “U.S.A. $ 30.00 / CANADA $ 45.00” on the front flap. It features a photograph of McCarthy by Marion Ettlinger on the front panel and five blurbs on the back. Book design by Barbara De Wilde and Carol Devine Carson. The book collects All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain.
Signed by McCarthy on a publisher tipped-in page before the half title (APG, 011a).
CONDITION: near fine in a near fine dustjacket.
PROVENANCE: purchased from Rio Bound Books, San Marcos, TX, in 2021.
Published on September 2009 in a range of 30-200 copies.
Diana Tesdell, editor of fifteen Everyman’s Pocket Classic anthologies, told me that the first trade edition (unsigned) was published on September 28, 2009 in a print run of 7,500 copies. However, neither her nor the printer remembered the signed issue. Waverley Books in their catalog 3 of the year 2000 reports that possibly no more than 30 copies were produced. Following people working at Knopf at the time of publication, they were about 200.
The bookdealer Ken Lopez, reports that the signed issue was produced with and without dustjacket.
Copies of the first trade edition inscribed by McCarthy were noted.
COLLECTING TOPICS: this is a scarce issue. Significantly, it is much scarcer than any other limited signed issue of McCarthy titles produced by Knopf (The Crossing, The Crossing for Kroch & Brentano, Cities of the Plain, No Country for Old Men).
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4 Responses
Thank you
Picked up a signed and inscribed copy of this from Harrington a few years ago. I had never seen an inscribed one and was excited to get it… the tipped in ones are available fairly readily for now… there was one other “inscribed” copy I saw that I am certain is not real too…
How does one find prices of these items?
Hello. Prices for first editions by McCarthy for sale could be found easily on Abebooks. Prices got at auction in rare Book Hub.