The Reivers: A Reminiscence.

FAULKNER, William [Cormac McCarthy].

Item Number: 145642

New York: Random House, 1962.

First edition of the author’s second Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Octavo, original cloth. From the library of Cormac McCarthy with his ownership signature to the front free endpaper. McCarthy has been widely praised as not only a disciple of Faulkner, but his literary heir. Both authors’ biblically influenced prose formed the basis of a large body of tragically intertwined, powerful narratives filled with a nostalgic yearning for an earlier, ancestral, rural America. In many ways, McCarthy picked up where Faulkner left off, further exploring and elaborating on a number of core themes including the concept of sin (including its consequences, transference, and ritualistic attempts to purify it), justification of (often savage and sacrificial) violence, and disillusionment with the moralist ideology of modern civilization. McCarthy’s writing style, particularly in his earlier work, owed much to Faulkner – in its dense prose, use of dialect, vivid imagery and descriptions of the American landscape, and fluid ambiguity of time and place. Published only three years after William Faulkner’s death and edited by Albert Erskine, who worked with Faulkner at Random House, McCarthy’s debut novel, The Orchard Keeper was awarded the 1966 William Faulkner Foundation Award and contains perhaps his most overt use of Faulknerian literary devices and mannerisms. Faulkner’s influence on McCarthy’s themes and style are also apparent to a notable degree in his fourth novel, Suttree (reminiscent of The Sound and the Fury) as well as his popular novels All the Pretty Horses, Blood Meridian, The Crossing, and The Road, where his descriptions of southern Appalachia evoke Faulkner’s fictional Mississippi county of Yoknapatawpha. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Milton Glaser. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. An exceptional association.

The Reivers is the last novel by Faulkner and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1963. Faulkner previously won it for A Fable, making him one of only three authors to be awarded it more than once. It was adapted into a 1969 film directed by Mark Rydell and starring Steve McQueen as Boon Hogganbeck.