A travel through a McCarthy first editions collection

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THE PASSENGER AND STELLA MARIS: THE PICADOR OVERRATED ADVANCE READING COPIES SET

The Passenger & Stella Maris, limited advance reading copies of the boxed English edition, slipcased. Picador, London, 2022. Advance reading copies of the boxed English editions. Two volumes. Hardcovers, 20,6 x 13,5 cm., 381 and 189 numbered pages with numbers appearing only on the odd-numbered pages. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in black and white for The Passenger, blue cloth lettered in black and white for Stella Maris. No dust jacket as issued. Front panels of both books read “Limited edition...

STELLA MARIS, THE DELAY OF PUBLICATION, AND THE THREE STATES OF THE ARCS

Stella Maris,  advance reading copy, first, and third state. Knopf, New York, 2022. Advance reader’s copy of the first trade edition, first and third state. Softcover, 23,5 x 15,6 cm., 189 numbered pages with numbers appearing only on the odd-numbered pages. Matte wrappers reproducing the design of the trade first edition dust jacket by Chip Kidd  lettered in white on spine and front panel.

ADVANCE READING COPIES OF THE PASSENGER: AN INTRIGUING HISTORY

The Passenger, advance reading copy of the first American edition: first, third and fourth states. Knopf, New York, 2022. Advance reading copy of the first trade edition: first, second and third states. Three softcover volumes, 23,5 x 15,6 cm., 383 numbered pages with numbers appearing only on the odd-numbered pages. Matte wrappers reproduce the design of the trade first edition dust jacket by Chip Kidd, lettered in white on the spine and front panel.

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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