'The Orchard Keeper', US signed and inscribed first edition with excellent provenance

McCarthy, Cormac

Published by Random House, 1965

About this Item

Cormac McCarthy (1965) The Orchard Keeper , US first edition, first printing, published by Random House. Signed and inscribed by the author on the half-title page: For Philip Murray All the best Cormac McCarthy . The scarce McCarthy debut novel inscribed with rock solid provenance as described below, and as the correspondence letters cement in the last images of this listing. Please note that the original letters stay with us. However, the buyer will receive a copy of Philip Murray s memoirs with this The Orchard Keeper copy. Condition: a very good copy. No previous owner s bookplates, no inscriptions. A little shelf wear including rubbed top corners and a faint stain on the top of the front board. Lettering is still fresh on the spine and so is the green top stain. A whiff of foxing. The first state dust jacket is NOT price clipped (most clipped dust jackets look a bit fresher as they come from the second printing). Slightly sunned on the spine commensurate with age. Provenance: From the Dr Philip Murray collection. Medical Doctor Philip Murray (1940-2019) from Sligo, Ireland was an avid reader of literary fiction and became a passionate collector of first edition books. He only collected what he also enjoyed reading. In 2011 he published his memoirs titled Adventures of a Book Collector [Currach Press] where he recalls his collecting career spanning over four decades. In his memoirs he dedicates four pages to Cormac McCarthy (pp 120-24) and one photographic plate which depicts Murray and McCarthy arm in arm in Sligo in 2004. Murray relates that he wrote to Cormac in 1990 before McCarthy hit fame with his Border trilogy. McCarthy agreed to sign and return his books and over the years they maintained correspondence with the highlight being McCarthy s visit in Sligo in 2004. Murray embarked on a complete author collection of McCarthy. In the summer of 2016 his vast collection of over 2,000 books was sold in Dublin at auction fetching over EUR 275,000. However, it speaks volumes that Murray could not bring himself to part with his McCarthy collection back in 2016 but kept it until he died. Too strong his love for the work of the author. Cormac McCarthy is a very private author who has granted just a handful of interviews to journalists. His principle is that it is better to write than to talk about writing. As a result genuine signed books are few and far between and provenance is key. We recommend that flat signed copies should be avoided by the collector as signed material is rare and many forgers cannot resist the temptation of enhancing a book s monetary value . Whilst a flat signed copy might be genuine, in our opinion the risk of acquiring a forgery is too great. The Orchard Keeper is Mccarthy s debut novel. Although hailed by critics and earning the Traveling Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as the William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel, it would take five more novels and almost three decades until he would enjoy commercial success with All the Pretty Horses (1992). Since then McCarthy has been rediscovered and declared greatest living American writer . The Road (2006) earned him the Pulitzer Prize, and Hollywood startet to adapt his work to blockbusters like No Country for Old Men and The Road . First and Fine.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1587888013982

Bibliographic Details

• Title: 'The Orchard Keeper', US signed and inscribed first edition with excellent provenance
• Publisher: Random House
• Publication Date: 1965
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)