Child of God by Cormac McCarthy - Numbered Edition

PRE-ORDER PRICE: $675 
PUBLICATION PRICE: $725 

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.

NUMBERED EDITION

• 6.7 x 9.5 inches trim size.
• 194 Pages.
• Limited to 250 copies.
• Signed by John Banville and Barry Moser.
• Twelve woodcuts by Barry Moser printed letterpress with the text.
• Quarter goatskin binding with boards covered in handmade batik paper from India, made from recycled cotton rag; each sheet coated in wax, crumpled by hand, and dipped in dye, leaving a network of crackled veins with no two sheets being the same.
• Detail from one of Barry Moser's woodcuts letterpress-printed on the front board; spine is foil-blocked.
• Text set in Poliphilus & Blado, with Caslon Antique for display.
• Designed by Jason Dewinetz.
• Printed letterpress on Mohawk Superfine.
• Housed in a clamshell enclosure covered in Natuurlinnen, a woven cotton cloth.
• Endsheets are black Hahnemühle Bugra.
• Endbands are handmade in leather.
• Includes a new afterword by John Banville.
• Letterpress printed bookmark with all pre-orders.

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