Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West.

MCCARTHY, Cormac.

$55,000.00

Item Number: 149734

New York: Random House, 1985.

First edition of Cormac McCarthy’s fifth novel, widely considered his masterpiece and among the greatest novels of the 20th century. Octavo, original half cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “For Anne With Love Cormac.” The recipient, Anne DeLisle was McCarthy’s second wife. McCarthy published his debut novel, The Orchard Keeper, in 1965, earning the William Faulkner Award for Best First Novel and a Rockefeller Grant. With his grant money, he traveled aboard the Sylvania, where he met singer and dancer Annie DeLisle of The Healy Sisters duo. The two fell in love and married on May 14, 1966, in Annie’s hometown of Hamble, England. Using their combined incomes, the couple traveled through Paris and Geneva before settling on Ibiza, where they joined the island’s vibrant artistic community. There, McCarthy completed Outer Dark while bonding with fellow novelist Leslie Garrett. In 1967, they returned to the U.S., settling first on a Tennessee farm and later in a restored barn in Louisville, funded by McCarthy’s Guggenheim Fellowship. During this period, McCarthy wrote Suttree and completed Child of God in 1973. Annie recalled these times fondly, despite their modest means, noting McCarthy’s reclusive nature and dedication to his craft. The couple separated in 1976, after which McCarthy moved to El Paso and continued his literary ascent. Blood Meridian (1985) cemented his reputation, and All the Pretty Horses (1991) brought widespread fame, making him one of the most significant writers of the 20th century. Annie stayed in Tennessee, opening Annie’s, a jazz club and gourmet restaurant in Knoxville’s Old City in 1983. The venue played a key role in revitalizing the area, offering live music reminiscent of New Orleans. Though Annie moved on in 1989, the restaurant remained a local fixture until 2004. Very good in a very good dust jacket with some light wear and small closed tears to the extremities. Jacket painting: “The Phantom Cart” by Salvador Dali. Jacket design by Richard Adelson. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box by the Harcourt Bindery. Founded over a century ago in 1900, the Harcourt Bindery is the oldest and largest traditional bindery in America exclusively devoted to fine traditional leather bookbinding by hand. An exceptional association copy of the author’s profound and significant magnum opus.

"Blood Meridian seems to me the authentic American apocalyptic novel, more relevant even in 2000 than it was fifteen years ago. The fulfilled renown of Moby-Dick and of As I Lay Dying is augmented by Blood Meridian, since Cormac McCarthy is the worthy disciple both of Melville and of Faulkner. I venture that no other living American novelist, not even Pynchon, has given us a book as strong and memorable as Blood Meridian" (Harold Bloom). "McCarthy can only be compared with our greatest writers, with Melville and Faulkner, and this is his masterpiece" (Michael Herr). While All the Pretty Horses brought McCarthy widespread fame and The Road won him a Pulitzer Prize, Blood Meridian is frequently cited as his magnum opus for its profound complexity and lasting impact on American literature.