A travel through a McCarthy first editions collection

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TRICE LIMITED EDITION OF CITIES OF THE PLAIN: THE NUMBERED ISSUE

Cities of the Plain, B E Trice limited edition, numbered issue B E Trice, New Orleans, 1998 First Trice edition, only printing, numbered issue. Number 118 out of 300 copies signed and numbered by the author on a colophon page. Hardcover, 22,4 x 15,2 cm., 291 numbered pages. Quarter bound black leather spine lettered in gilt over marbled boards. Publisher’s full burgundy cloth slipcase with the author’s signature printed in gilt. Without dust jacket as issued (APG, 010f).

BRITTON TRICE ENTERS THE SCENE: CITIES OF THE PLAIN’S PROMOTIONAL PAMPHLET

Cities of the Plain, B.E. Trice limited edition, promotional pamphlet B.E. Trice, New Orleans, 1998 Promotional pamphlet for Cities of the Plain and Galilee by Clive Barker. White cardboard leaf 25,6 x 18 cm., folded in the middle to obtain four unnumbered pages 18 x 12,8 cm. Lettered in black and red. First page reads: “Two new / Limited Editions / from / B E / Trice / Publishing / New Orleans”. The second page devoted to Barker’s novel. The…

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

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…

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.

FOCUS

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BOOK COLLECTION

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THE NEW YORK TIMES EXCERPT UNVEILS THE PASSENGER, AFTER A SIXTEEN-YEARS WAIT

The Passenger, advance excerpt in The New York Times. The New York Times Company, New York, 2022. Advance excerpt in The New York Times “Arts & Leisure” section, October 16, 2022. The section title page is mostly devoted to the forthcoming novel, showing an illustration by Patrick Svensson, who also provided the inside illustrations, and stating: “The Passenger An excerpt from Cormac McCarthy’s new novel, his first in 16 years”. The excerpt appears on pages 14-17. Page 18 features a review of The Passenger and Stella Maris by Alexandra Alter, including a photo of McCarthy by Beowulf Sheehan.

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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