A travel through a McCarthy first editions collection

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“MY GOD THAT BOOK…”, THE ITALIAN FIRST EDITION OF SUTTREE

Suttree, first Italian edition Einaudi, Torino, 2009. First Italian edition, first printing with complete numberlines from 0 to 6 and from 2009 to 2012 on a colophon page bound after the contents page at the end of the book, which reads “Stampato…nel mese di Ottobre 2009”. Hardcover, 22,3 x 14,3 cm, 560 numbered pages. Publisher’s original greenish-grey cloth lettered in black on spine. White dustjacket lettered in black with a reproduction of the painting “Trout fishing, Lake St.John, Québec” by...

SUTTREE FIRST MODERN LIBRARY EDITION, SCARCE COPY INSCRIBED TO A FRIEND

Suttree, first Modern Library edition. Random House, New York, 2002. First Modern Library edition, first printing with complete number line (246897531) on the copyright page. Hardcover, 19 x 12,5 cm., 471 numbered pages. Publisher’s grey cloth lettered in gilt on the spine with torchbearer logo embossed on front board and torchbearer motif on the endpapers. Silver and grayish blue dustjacket lettered in black with a photo of McCarthy by Marion Ettlinger on the front panel, a The Times Literary Supplement...

COMPLIMENTARY COPY OF SUTTREE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION: A SCARCE SURVIVAL

Suttre, first English edition, complimentary copy. Chatto & Windus, London, 1980. First English edition, first and only printing with “1980” on the title page. Complimentary copy with publisher’s complimentary slip laid in. Hardcover, 21,5 x 14,6 cm., 471 numbered pages. Publisher’s cream paper covered and black cloth boards lettered in gilt on the spine, with gilt initials “CM” on the front panel and the Random House imprint at spine foot. This English “issue” is made from the American sheets indeed,...

A Few Words to Start

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.

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BOOK COLLECTION

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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.

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NEWS

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