Until a few days ago, only one set of the short stories written by McCarthy during his college years was known to be in private hands. Now, two other sets, in exceptional condition, have surfaced, thanks to the passion and the book-hunting skills of a collector from Knoxville, Peyton Gupton.

Gupton purchased the two sets from a retired professor at the University of Tennessee who, during his tenure at UT, had helped with the publication of the The Phoenix, the college review in which two short stories, “A Drowning Incident” and “Wake for Susan”, appeared under the name respectively, “C.J. McCarthy jr” and “C.J.McCarthy”. Along with them, Gupton acquired two copies of the “40th Anniversary” and “50 years” special issues of the Phoenix, published in 1999 and 2010, which reprinted the two short stories and are scarce in itself.

The excellent condition of the fragile booklets support the assumption that they were never distributed and were likely retained either by the University of Tennessee or by a professor teaching there.

The print run of the Phoenix issues is unknown as UT had no record of it, and the printer used is no longer in existence. However, the issues are renowned for their scarcity. One set has been sold to another collector, the other has become part of Peyton’s collection. And I’d wager it will remain there for a long time.