Child of God by Cormac McCarthy - Lettered Edition

PRE-ORDER PRICE: $3500 
PUBLICATION PRICE: $3750 

A harrowing descent into isolation, violence and the darkest reaches of human nature, Child of God is one of Cormac McCarthy’s most inimitably disturbing works, and an early expression of the uncompromising vision that would come to define one of America’s greatest writers.

Set in the hill country of East Tennessee, the novel follows Lester Ballard, a dispossessed and solitary man living at the edges of society. After losing his home, Ballard retreats deeper into the wilderness and further from the community that has rejected him, taking refuge first in an abandoned cabin and eventually in a network of mountain caves.

As his isolation grows, so does his capacity for violence, and what begins as the story of an outcast becomes something far more brutal. Yet McCarthy refuses to render Ballard as simply monstrous. Described as “a child of God much like yourself perhaps,” he remains recognizably human even as his actions become increasingly horrific, forcing the reader to confront the razor’s edge upon which civilization and savagery meet.

First published by Random House in 1973, Child of God was McCarthy’s third novel, following The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark, and continued his exploration of the Appalachian South that would characterize his early work. Publishers Weekly praised the novel’s tightly controlled approach, writing, “Cormac McCarthy's much-admired prose is suspenseful, rich with detail, and yet restrained, even delicate, in its images of Lester's activities. So tightly focused is the story on this one ‘child of God’ that it resembles a myth, or parable.”

Horrifying and darkly beautiful, Child of God is Cormac McCarthy's chilling examination of what is left of a human being when society, morality and every familiar boundary have fallen away.

The limited edition of Child of God by Cormac McCarthy is presented in three states: Artist Edition, Numbered Edition and Lettered Edition.

LETTERED EDITION

• 6.7 x 9.5 inches trim size.
• 194 Pages.
• Limited to 26 copies.
• Signed by John Banville and Barry Moser.
• Twelve woodcuts by Barry Moser printed letterpress with the text.
• Boards covered in unfinished crust leather, stamped and dyed, with torn-edge white leather onlay on the front board carrying the title.
• Bound by master bookbinder Zigor Anguiano Calzada in Spain.
• Text set in Poliphilus & Blado, with Caslon Antique for display.
• Designed by Jason Dewinetz.
• Printed letterpress by Scott Vile on his Heidelberg Cylinder on handmade Twinrocker Da Vinci paper.
• Housed in a clamshell enclosure covered in cloth.
• Head and tail bands are handmade with leather.
• Endsheets are Hahnemühle Ingres.
• Includes a new afterword by John Banville.
• Each copy is accompanied by a print of one of Moser's woodblocks, pulled on Kitakata paper and presented in a folded paper wrapper.
• Letterpress printed bookmark with all pre-orders.

Published editions may differ slightly from mockups and prototype designs.
Illustrations © 2025 by Barry Moser.