This week, Random House celebrates the 25th anniversary of Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece Blood Meridian by releasing a new hardback edition of the book. This new Modern Library version retains Harold Bloom’s now-oft-cited introductory essay and features a new cover design by Richard Adelson that echoes the first edition and restores its original art work, The Phantom Cart by Salvador Dali. Here is the new cover–
The release of this new edition and the book’s anniversary give us a great excuse to declare the next five days Blood Meridian Week on Biblioklept. (Yes, we know that it’s also Banned Books Week this week. But celebrating Blood Meridian seems to gel with that). We’ll re-run our original review, take a look at what different critics have had to say about the book, quote some of our favorite passages at length, share some of the better resources at large for tackling this often difficult book, examine some of the history behind it, and generally laud it for its horrifying excellence. We’ll also be giving away a copy of the new 25th anniversary edition to one lucky reader, so keep your eyes peeled for details.