THE ORCHARD KEEPER - DAVID MADDEN'S EXTENSIVELY ANNOTATED REVIEW COPY

New York: Random House, 1965. First Edition. McCarthy's first book, set during the inter-War period within a small, isolated town in Eastern Tennessee. The book won the Faulkner Foundation Award for Best First Novel of the Year, and while it was successful enough to go into a second printing, only around 3,000 copies were sold in total. This copy belonged to Tennessee author, critic, and Southern fiction scholar David Madden, whose 1979 novel The Suicide's Wife was a Pulitzer Prize nominee. Madden wrote one of the earliest reviews of McCarthy's novel for the Literary Annual (1966). His interaction with the text is both extensive and insightful, and on numerous occasions he draws clear parallels between McCarthy's writing and the work and influence of William Faulkner. The volume is annotated in five colors of ink, and it's clear that this is a work Madden would revisit over the course of four decades. A true reviewer's copy, connecting two of the 20th century's most prominent Tennessee authors. First Printing. Octavo (21cm); brick red paper-covered boards and dark teal cloth backstrip, with titling, decorative elements, and author's initials stamped in gilt and metallic red on spine and front cover; green topstain; dustjacket; [iv],[7],8-246,[4]pp. Novelist and literary critic David Madden's review copy, with his contemporary holograph signature at upper front endpaper, and his extensive markings and annotations appearing on 232pp of text, including five full pages of notes on the terminal leaves. Topstain faded, light wear to extremities; Very Good+. Dustjacket is unclipped (priced $4.95), gently spine-sunned and lightly dust-soiled, showing moderate external wear, several tiny nicks and small tears; five pieces of clear tape reinforcement on verso (including a long split along the front flap fold), with tape reinforcement along the rear joint and lower left corner of rear panel; Very Good only.