Collecting the works of Cormac McCarthy is celebrated on a new website

In this guest article for Fine Books, Umberto La Rocca writes about the founding The McCarthyista new website about Cormac McCarthy and his work

What better task is there for a recently retired man than cataloguing his book collection? I don’t think so. So a few years ago I started to work on my rather extensive collection of over 200 books, letters and ephemera by or relating to Cormac McCarthy.

It was a long but amazing job. However, as I delved deeper into the books, I realized that many details about the publication, first printings, different editions, etc. were unknown, not based on reliable sources, or even definitely wrong. In addition, some of the people to whom the books were dedicated were similarly little known and had interesting stories to tell that were worth telling.

So I began reading critical and biographical essays, poring over relevant archives, particularly in the US and England, and earlier this year I spent ten days researching the Cormac McCarthy papers and the Woolmer collection of Cormac McCarthy at the University of Texas at San Marcos. I spoke with McCarthy scholars Dianne Luce and Wesley Morgan, key publishers Dan Halpern, Gary Fisketjon and Christopher MacLehose, and McCarthy friends Lanelle Holley, Laurence Gonzales and Cynthia Farah Haines. They all generously shared their knowledge and information, as did many collectors, librarians and antiquarian bookshops.