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The source for the first print run is a Random House fact sheet. Late in January copies of the book were ready to be shipped (EP, B32, F13). By March 12, McCarthy had already received his personal copies (Borsten, March 12, 1985). The book sold 1,883 copies (TCP). 

Excerpts of the novel appeared prior of publication: 

• TriQuarterly, 48, Spring 1980;
• the Sunday Magazine section of the Dallas Times Herald, October 1981;
• Antaeus, 53, Autumn 1984.

Uncorrected proofs of this first trade edition were issued in late 1984. 

While writing Blood Meridian, McCarthy considered to get it published as an illustrated book. He collected a large batch of images for this purpose. He was likely influenced by the drawings and paintings Samuel Chamberlain included in his book My Confession, one of the main historical sources for Blood Meridian. In a letter, mailed in December 1978, he sent to Erskine maps intended for the endpapers of Blood Meridian first edition. Later, in a letter to his friend Guy Davenport dated September 16, 1982, McCarthy requested help finding “more old period prints similar to ones that used to be in Harper’s Magazine”. He explained that he had already gathered about twenty of them but he needed more “odd-illustrations for the book”. The book was Blood Meridian which, he told an Ecco Press manager just after the publication, “at some point had to be illustrated”. 

McCarthy pushed his project for two years, but Erskine apparently didn’t give it much attention as there are no traces of this effort in his letters to the writer. So, in a letter to Davenport dated November 20, 1984, just four months before the publication of Blood Meridian, McCarthy announced that he had surrendered: “The illustrations were finally vetoed and I suppose its [sic] just as well”. 

In another letter to Orin Borsten, McCarthy confessed: “I’d love to see it published in a pulpy paperback”.

REVIEW COPIES: these were noted, with publisher’s slip, McCarthy photo and a promotional leaflet.   

COMPLIMENTARY COPIES: these were noted with a publisher’s “With the Compliments of the Author” card laid in. 

REMAINDERED COPIES: these were noted with a publisher’s red marker stripe on either the bottom or the top edge. Woolmer also noted remaindered copies with a “stamp on top edge”. 

RECIPIENT: the friendship between McCarthy and Abbey began early in 1986, when Abbey sent a card to McCarthy appreciating Blood Meridian and discussing it. McCarthy answered in a letter postmarked July 25, 1986: “Of course you are right that the book is not the whole truth. But it is amazing how little the history of southwest is known. And how reluctant folks are to accept some very elemental facts about that history”. 

McCarthy had read Desert Solitaire ten years before, and in a letter to Abbey, he describes how he got ‘boxed out’ while hiking Big Bend near Moab. After retracing his steps and locating his car, he “drank some water and ate something and opened the book [he] was reading – Desert Solitaire – and read the next chapter”. That chapter described how Abbey also gets boxed out while hiking in Big Bend near Moab, and McCarthy writes that if he had read it a day sooner, he would have been spared the trouble (EAP).

Woodward, in his famous interview with McCarthy published in 1992, recounts that the author of Blood Meridian and Abbey, spoke about the project to reintroduce the wolf to southern Arizona, although there is no trace of this in the five letters by McCarthy to Abbey held at the University of Arizona. McCarthy met Abbey in Tucson between May and July, 1988. The last letter from McCarthy is dated August 16, 1988, less than one year before Abbey’s death on March 13, 1989, at the age of 62. 

It could be observed, en passant, that Abbey’s comment about Blood meridian being not “the whole truth” was possibly one of the bases of the shifted mood of The Border Trilogy, with its praise of Old West values and lament for their passing. The shift is evident and all scholars have recognized it. However, perhaps the simplest expression of this shift came from a journalist: “Where McCarthy once spent pages describing the desecration of human bodies and the scalping escapades of Comanches, he now presents evocative depictions of horses—elevated to the stature of immortal beings” (Robert Draper, The Invisible Man”, in Texas Monthly, July, 1992).  

NOTABLE COPIES:    

• DELISLE COPY: a very good copy inscribed by McCarthy to his second wife, “For Anne / With love / Cormac”. Auctioned at Bonhams, New York, on April 10, 2024, it sold for $28,160.  

• SHEDDAN COPY: a very good copy inscribed “For John Sheddan / at Saxon Oaks Manor / In April of 1985 / All the Best, old friend / Cormac”. From the collection of I.D. “Nash” Flores III. Sold at Heritage Auction on October, 2014 for $15,000. Purchased by Raptis Rare Books and listed at $30,000. After McCarthy death the listing was revised and the book as of February, 2024, was offered at $48,000.

• KIDWELL COPY: a very good copy, inscribed and signed by McCarthy, “For Bill Kidwell / All the best from / your friend / Cormac McCarthy” on the half title page. Sold at Heritage on April 10, 2013 for $8,750. “A very interesting and unique aspect of this copy relates to an obscured portion of handwriting to the title page. Below the author’s printed name can be seen two lines of Liquid Paper correction. When looked at from the reverse of the title page, one can clearly see the words “for Bill Kidwell” in a secretarial hand, and then McCarthy’s autograph, “Cormac” underneath. What likely happened here is that McCarthy was unhappy to have signed a secretarial inscription for such a close friend, ordered it to be blotted out, and then added his personal inscription to the half title page. This is very likely a unique occurrence in a McCarthy title” (from the Heritage catalog).                                                                                                                            
• HOLLEYS COPY: a good only copy, warmly inscribed on the front free end paper to McCarthy’s long-time friends John and Lanelle Holley, “For John & Lanelle / With much love / Cormac”. Sold at Case Antiques on January 27, 2024, for $15,000. Purchased by Raptis Rare Books (who, in my opinion, misdescribed it as a fine book in a near fine dustjacket), as of December 2024, it was offered for $30,000.

• WOOLMER COPY: a fine, superior copy, inscribed in brown (faded from black?) ink on the first free endpaper: “All the Best, Howard / your friend / Cormac”. Housed in the Woolmer collection of Cormac McCarthy, held at University of Texas, San Marcos.

• MURRAY COPY: a very good copy, inscribed to McCarthy’s Irish friend and collector Philip Murray: “For Philip Murray / with all best wishes / Cormac McCarthy”. Sold at Fonsie Mealy on December 10, 2019 for € 5,040

• FARAH COPY: a near fine, remaindered copy, inscribed to Cynthia [Farah], McCarthy’s friend and the director of Film Studies at the University of Texas El Paso and the photographer behind the award-winning book “Literature and Landscape: Writers of the Southwest. See: Ken Lopez, Catalog 117, September 2001, item 217.

• BORSTEN COPY: a review copy in near fine condition, with Random House slip laid in. inscribed by McCarthy on the front free endpaper to the writer and friend Orin Borsten: “For Orin / All the best / Cormac.” Also laid in is a publisher’s “With the Compliments of the Author” card. Part of the Maurice F. Neville collection, sold at Sotheby’s on November 16, 2004, for $8,400. It was auction along with an autograph letter signed (“Cormac”), one page, from Chinuahua, Mexico, n.d., to Larry Millman in Ogunquit, Maine; on pictorial letterhead of the Hotel Victoria, with envelope: “…I find that your last letter is over 2 years old…Thanks for the Dillard article. I agree about the boredom. Another hero (heroine) shot down”.

• GONZALES COPY: a fine copy, inscribed in a later hand to McCarthy’s friend and author of a forthcoming biography, Laurence Gonzales: “For Laurence / from your friend /Cormac / Jan 2018 SFI / Santa Fe New Mexico”. In 2024 the entire Gonzales collection was sold to an American collector.

• BOOZER COPY: a very good publisher’s review copy with review slip, publicity letter, and a black and white marketing photograph by Mark Morrow (1981; matching the photograph on the rear panel of the dust jacket) laid in. Signed by the author to the half-title page and with an autographed letter signed by the author to the writer, reviewer, fan and collector of Faulkner, William Boozer. It was Orin Borsten who put Boozer in touch with McCarthy in 1979, sending to him a review of Child of God written by Boozer (McCarthy to Borsten, December 16, 1979). They stayed in touch at least until the second half of 80s. Sold at Heritage in 2021 for $16,250.

• LOWMAN COPY: a fine, crisp copy; one of the best, if not the best, I have ever seen. Inscribed in black ballpoint pen on the first free endpaper to the writer Albert Lowman: “For Al Lowman /  All best wishes / Cormac McCarthy”. Al Lowman, was the author of several books about Texas printers, writers, and bookmen. He amassed an extensive collections of Southwestern  literature. This copy is a prime example of the raising of prices of the McCarthy’s masterpiece signed first edition copies. The book sold for $3600 at a Swann Gallery auction featuring the Al Lowman collection on March 18, 2010. I purchased it, later that year, from the book dealer Skyline Books for $6,000. In 2024, I resold it for $20,000. As of December of the same year, Peter Harrington has it for sale at $42,000. 

• HOROWITZ COPY: Inscribed “For Glenn Horowitz, All the best. Cormac McCarthy, Dec 2007”. Housed in a private American collection. Horowitz is a famous book dealer who managed the sale of the Cormac Mccarthy’s papers to the Wittllif collection in 2007.

• BARBARA COPY: un unsigned copy owned by a McCarthy’s friend named Barbara, which appeared on the market in 2022. It is noticeable because it was for sale along with five original color photos The five pictures show: 

• McCarthy and Anne DeLisle with their dog “Blackie” eating from Cormac’s plate.
• McCarthy and Anne sitting on a sofa with Barbara and two other friends.
• McCarthy, Anne, and Barbara sitting at a dinner table toasting with drinks.
• McCarthy with his arm around a young blonde woman standing in the snow in front of a building resembling Santa Fe architecture.
• McCarthy with his arms around Barbara and the young blonde woman at an outdoor market, probably in Ciudad Juárez.

Notably, there is strong evidence that the blonde woman may be Augusta Britt, McCarthy’s lover.

COLLECTING TOPICS: with Blood Meridian first edition we reach one of the picks, if not the pick, of McCarthy collecting. Prices have risen steeply in recent years. Unsigned copies of McCarthy’s masterpiece are less uncommon than one might think. Rare Book Hub lists 62 unsigned copies auctioned. As of December 2024, book dealers offered 28 unsigned copies in various conditions (including a few review copies) on Abebooks, priced between $2800 and $13,500. 

Signed or inscribed copies are uncommon. Rare Book Hub lists 17 of them. Abebooks lists eight copies priced between $10,500 and $48,000. Some are merely flat-signed, without a strong provenance, and should not be considered by serious collectors.