Box 1

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Christmas greetings.

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“Ecco sent me about a half dozen of these [advance cover for paperback Blood Meridian] and I was just [martialing] all forces for a note to you I should I would send you one…” The Curtis book “has escaped.” Asks what book Woolmer is working on. Included: advance cover inscribed “Guaranteed to be the first autographed copy. All the best, Cormac.”

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Thanks for Blood Meridian cover. Working on checklist of Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press.

Contents “Thank you very much for the book [Bibliography of Malcolm Lowry]. I think is quite elegant and I’ve enjoyed looking through it. I think Under the Volcano is an amazing book and Lowry a genuinely tragic figure…” Discusses Malcolm Lowry and Albert Erskine’s relationship with him. “Thank you also for the excerpt from Rubin’s book on Southern literature…I see these excerpts come from pages as advanced as #581. How long does this tome continue? I didnt know there was that much Southern...

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Sorry he missed McCarthy’s phone call; Asks about status of Curtis book.

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“Sorry I missed you on the telephone. Perel was stirring about the Curtis again, but it has subsided again since…Random House sends the proof cover of their paperback issue of Suttree – due out in October. A ‘Vintage Contemporary’ the jacket says. Do you love it? Gallimard has bought the rights to Blood Meridian.” He’s written a play.

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Sending a “have-list” of his CMcC collection [not included]; offers to buy anything McCarthy has that’s not on the list.

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“Aint you a good chap to send the play? I thought it quite good…” Mentions that his agent has banned him for showing anyone a copy of his new play “Something to do with his strategy…”

Contents “Thanks for the correspondence – The Writer’s Choice is something I would not have seen otherwise. Tobias Wolff is a very agreeable chap…I was pleased to see I remain in his good graces…” Lists McCarthy editions that Woolmer might not have in his. “My translator was here a few weeks ago. Charming gentleman who loved the desert and kept crying out ‘formidéble!’ at everything…I’m working on a whale story. May go to Argentina in the fall with a biologist friend who studies them…” Asks whom else...

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Trying to get French translations. Discusses book collecting (Yount, Gilbert White Graham Swift) and bibliography writing.

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Inquiring about McCarthy excerpt in text book. Warren’s response indicates that he did not publish an excerpt in Understanding Fiction, but there might be a reference to McCarthy.

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“This, as the card says, comes to you from Ushuzia [Argentina], the southernmost city in the world…”.

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“Just back from the Argentine – a good trip. Spent about 3 weeks among the whales at peninsula Valdez…[Guy] Davenport is supposed to have a new collection of essays out from North Point. I thought the first collection was just a first rate piece of work…Just finished a very interesting book called The Body in Pain by Elaine Scanny…” Sending a Yount book found for 50 cents.

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Thanking him for Yount book. Recommends Robert Herring books. Enclosing Anatole Broyard New York Times Book Review article, “To Squalor, With Love” that references Suttree. [clipping included].

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“Good to hear from you. I see I’m going to have to start proofreading my letters before I send them off…” Spent Christmas with his brother in Knoxville then went to California for a week. “I’m now holed up and back to work. My whale biologist friend Roger is in the Seychelles. I think I’m in the wrong business…”

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“Thank you for the clipping from the NY Times. I’m just back from California, where a theatre group did a reading of a play I wrote…I’ve finished a rough draft of a novel [All the Pretty Horses] – Mexico & Texas in the 1940’s – and started another one with much the same setting…”

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Asking if McCarthy has an extra copy of the play script.

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“I aint forgot you…” Is hesitant to send copy of script “because I intend some time to do some more work on it. There are elements that are just not clean…” Recommends [Bruce Chatwin’s] Songlines.

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Inquiring about advance copies of Outer Dark and Child of God.

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Passing along compliment from Bruce Chatwin. Also inquiring about selling his papers; is establishing a relationship with a university library that would be in position to purchase his archives. Advises to never throw anything away.