The Crossing (Inscribed Association Copy)

McCarthy, Cormac. The Crossing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. First edition, first printing. With “First Edition” stated on the copyright page. Signed and inscribed by Cormac McCarthy to Jacob Rogers, the son of McCarthy’s longtime assistant Rick Rogers. Octavo. 426 pages. Original publisher’s cloth-backed boards; in the original pictorial dust jacket, with the publisher’s $23.00 price present on the front flap. A VG copy in a VG jacket. Rick Rogers worked for McCarthy for more than a decade, helping with the practical details of McCarthy’s life—looking after his cars, keeping an eye on his storage facilities in El Paso, and building bookshelves and furniture for him in Santa Fe. Over time, the Rogers and McCarthy families came to know one another personally and visited often, which makes Jacob Rogers a meaningful recipient rather than merely a name in an inscription. The Crossing is the second and, in many respects, the darkest and most searching volume of the Border Trilogy. Following Billy Parham across the border and back again, the novel expands McCarthy’s western landscape into a meditation on loss, violence, animals, family, and the unknowable moral weight of experience. It is one of the central books of McCarthy’s middle period, published after the breakthrough success of All the Pretty Horses and before Cities of the Plain completed the trilogy. The inscription gives this copy its particular strength. McCarthy signed material is always desirable, but an inscribed copy connected to the Rogers family carries a more personal association. Rick Rogers was part of McCarthy’s day-to-day world for roughly fifteen years, and Jacob’s presence in the inscription places the book within that private orbit rather than in the ordinary stream of signed trade copies. For collectors, the appeal lies in the combination: a first edition, first printing of a major Border Trilogy novel, personally inscribed to someone tied to McCarthy through a close family relationship and long practical friendship. A compelling association copy of an essential McCarthy title. …