McCarthy, Cormac. [Ex-libris: Nicholas Potter, bookseller]

The Passenger & Stella Maris Boxed Set [Signed]

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2022. First editions, first printings in publisher's slipcase. Hardcover. From the library of the late Santa Fe bookseller Nicholas Potter, a long-time friend of Cormac McCarthy. Both volumes are signed by the author on publisher’s tipped-in pages: The Passenger in blue ink and Stella Maris in black ink. Laid into the first volume are two small memo notes in Potter’s hand, providing a record of the set's rarity: "This is one of the two copies of the boxed signed edition that Dorothy Massey [proprietor of Santa Fe’s Collected Works Bookstore] got in the "lottery" for them. Collected Works was one of hundreds of bookstores that tried to order them. Probably fewer than 500 were signed. Dorothy gave it to me."

383; 189 pp. Two octavo volumes [24 cm]. Publisher’s blue and red paper-covered boards, respectively; titles gilt-stamped to spines. First edition clearly stated on the copyright pages. In the original illustrated dust jackets with prices and date codes intact. Housed in the publisher's decorative, pictorial paper-covered slipcase, with the original paper label tipped-on the rear panel. All elements are Near Fine; bright, square, clean copies showing only the faintest hints of shelfwear or handling. Near Fine / Near Fine. Item #71333

This set documents a direct connection within the Santa Fe book trade, having been gifted from Dorothy Massey to Nicholas Potter. The signatures are provided on the publisher’s tipped-in pages, with provenance established by a laid-in note in Potter’s hand. This note identifies the volumes as a gift from Massey [proprietor of Collected Works], establishing a professional association that distinguishes this set from typical signed issues. It stands as a physical record of the professional network and relationships that supported McCarthy’s work in New Mexico for four decades.

Alfred A. Knopf published The Passenger on October 25, 2022, followed by Stella Maris on December 6, 2022. This slipcased boxed set was released concurrently with the second volume and contains both first-edition hardcovers. These signed sets were distributed via a highly restricted "lottery" to select bookstores; it is estimated that only 500 such sets were produced. As McCarthy declined public appearances for these final titles, these tipped-in pages represent rare "officially" signed copies of his final works. McCarthy passed away in June 2023—scarcely six months after the final volume's release—marking these as the last works published during his lifetime.

Conceived as a profound late-career diptych, The Passenger and Stella Maris constitute Cormac McCarthy’s final novels. The first volume follows Bobby Western, a salvage diver contending with his father’s legacy on the Manhattan Project and the suicide of his sister, Alicia. Its companion, Stella Maris, is a psychiatric transcript recording Alicia’s own struggle with mathematics and hallucination. Eschewing conventional linear plotting, the pairing serves as a rigorous inquiry into the "unshareable" nature of reality and the constraints of human knowledge.

Price: $2,500.00