CORMAC MCCARTHY'S BORDER TRILOGY, WITH OFFPRINT OF ALL THE PRETTY HORSES PRE-PUBLICATION EXCERPT

MCCARTHY, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses. WITH: The Crossing. WITH: Cities of the Plain. WITH: Promotional offprint for All the Pretty Horses. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992-98. Three volumes. Octavo, original half black cloth, original dust jackets. Offprint: Quarto, original stapled wraps . $1500.

First editions of the three novels in McCarthy's acclaimed "Border Trilogy," a fine set, with fine promotional offprint for All the Pretty Horses, illustrated by Marshall Arisman.

McCarthy's Border Trilogy—All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain—traces the lives of two young men coming into adulthood in the changing Southwest. "A taut, poetic evocation of the remote backcountry of south Texas and northern Mexico, [All the Pretty Horses is] strongly imagined and beautifully rendered by a very fine writer—one of our best—who deserves far more renown. The perception of horses is extraordinary, and Jimmy Blevins will take a place as one of the great characters of American literature" (Peter Matthiessen). "The Crossing is a miracle in prose, an American original…. [I]t will put readers in mind of Faulkner, Twain, Melville and Shakespeare… and, for good measure, John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone" (Robert Hass, The New York Times). "Told in both McCarthy's signature lyrical style and his dead-on ranchero dialogue, Cities of the Plain ends the trilogy at the height of McCarthy's storytelling skill" (Stacey Peebles, Cormac McCarthy Society). This set also includes the offprint of the March 1992 Esquire magazine excerpt of All the Pretty Horses which preceded the book publication, with two full-page color illustrations by American artist and illustrator Marshall Arisman. A signed limited edition of The Crossing was issued the same year; no priority has been established. With "First Edition" on copyright pages of all three volumes.

Books and offprint in fine condition.