Cormac McCarthy Archive Opens in San Marcos

Posted on May 18, 2009

A complete archive of Cormac McCarthy's work is going on display at the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos.

The Pulitzer prize-winning author's notes, handwritten drafts and correspondence for each of his 10 novels are included in the archive at the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos. Also featured in the 98-box archive, which spans McCarthy's literary career from 1964 to 2007, is his 1994 play The Stonemason, about an African-American family in Louisville, Kentucky, and four screenplays, including No Country for Old Men – which McCarthy started as a screenplay in 1984 and adapted into a novel 20 years later.

The author, who guards his privacy carefully, admitted in a rare interview with the New York Times in 1992 that he'd sent his debut The Orchard Keeper to Random House because "it was the only publisher I had heard of". Letters in the archive show McCarthy expressing his gladness that the "book is acceptable to [Random House]", and discussing inconsistencies and changes that needed to be made to the book.

There are maps and letters from experts who assisted McCarthy with questions such as "how a competent, rural physician might handle a gunshot wound." His unfinished novel, The Passenger is also in the collection, although it will not be displayed until it is published. The amazing archive also contains an unproduced screenplay. It's a real treasure trove for future Cormac McCarthy scholars.

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