This famous self-portrait comes from the collection of Burt Britton. Britton was a significant figure in the American book selling and collecting world. He began collecting self-portraits in the Mid-1960s when he was working at Village Vanguard in New York, the famous jazz place. He eventually went on to collect self-portraits of artists, writers, movie stars and musicians when he moved to the legendary Strand bookstore in 1968 and later when he opened his own bookstore.

Two letters by Britton to McCarthy, included in the Cormac McCarthy papers held at the Wittliff Collection in San Marcos, show that the self-portrait was drawn in March 1976 and sent by the writer to the book dealer from North Carolina. Britton was very pleased with it (“It’s wonderful!”) and offered as sign of gratefulness to send McCarthy every book he would need (MCC ADD, 210/7). The portrait was later included in Self-Portrait: Book People Picture Themselves published by Random House in 1976.

McCarthy and Britton remained in touch, used to met at Britton’s bookstore and eventually became friends. In a letter to Cheryl Merser at Random House, undated but datable around December, 1978, McCarthy writes: “Also you might send several copies [of Suttree] to Burt Britton at Books & Co. as he is also a great supporter and will generate whatever response he can” (RH, 1611).

In September, 2009 Britton’s whole collection of original portraits was auctioned at Bloomsbury. Britton passed away in 2018. He wrote about McCarthy: “Missing meeting Faulkner by a great number of years, I was fortunate to get his true heir to picture himself for me. ‘Old Dreams’, indeed”.

The self-portrait is the only known one by McCarthy. Additionally, it is very significant. Diane Luce in her key essay “Embracing Vocation” writes: “McCarthy has repeatedly acknowledged the ways in which dreams and unconscious fuel the creative life: in his statements to Martha Byrd, David Kushner, and Oprah Winfrey about the subconscious origins of his writing, and in his cartoon self-portrait for Burt Britton, in which he drew himself working at his manual typewriter, his brain wired up, his irises weirdly slanted to suggest an altered mental state, above the caption ‘Them Old Dreams are only in your head’” (p.130).