The Passenger / Stella Maris, first English slipcased edition, unsigned state Picador, London, 2022 First English slipcased edition, first printing, unsigned state. Two volumes housed in a heavy cardboard red and blue slipcase lettered in black. Hardcovers, 24,5 x 16,2 cm., 383 and 189 numbered pages, with numbers appearing only on odd-numbered pages. The Passenger is in the publisher’s black cloth lettered in metallic black on spine. Photographic endpapers by Bill Swindaman/Getty Images.
Stella Maris, first Italian edition. Einaudi, Torino, 2023. First Italian edition, first printing with “Stampato…nel mese di settembre 2023”, full number line and years line (“Ristampa 0 1 2 3 4 5” and “Anno 2023 2024 2025 2026” on the last page). Hardcover, 22,3 x 14,2 cm., 194 numbered pages. Publisher’s usual greenish grey boards lettered in black and with publisher’s logo on spine.
The Passenger (Il passeggero), first Italian edition. Einaudi, Torino, 2023. First Italian edition, first printing with “Stampato…nel mese di maggio 2023”, full number line and years line (“Ristampa 0 1 2 3 4 5” and “Anno 2023 2024 2025 2026”) on the last page. Hardcover, 22,3 x 14,6 cm., 385 numbered pages. Publisher’s usual greenish grey boards lettered in black and with publisher’s logo on spine.
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 Road, (La Route), graphic novel, adaptation by Manu Larcenet, dossier de presse. Dargaud, Paris, 2024. First edition, only printing. Stapled softcover in cardboard (not glossy), 24 x 24 cm, 12 unnumbered pages in four-color printing and a detachable flap attached to the back cover that can serve as a bookmark.
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.