Cormac McCarthy. The Orchard Keeper. New York: Random House, [1965]. First edition of the author's first book. Presentation copy, inscribed by McCarthy on the front free endpaper: "To John Sheddan/Cormac McCarthy".  Octavo. [2, blank], [iv], [247], [3, blank] pages. Publisher's green cloth backstrip over red boards, front board stamped in gilt and blind, spine stamped in red and gilt, price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket somewhat toned, with some minor rubbing (the weakness in to the fold of the front flap found in many copies doesn't appear here), some rubbing and very mild soiling to binding, text foxed. Lightly skewed. Still, a near fine copy with an excellent association.
"Some of McCarthy's friends claim that the character Gene Harrogate [a character in McCarthy's novel, Suttree], or at least his watermelon venture, was based in some way on John Sheddan, "scholar, schemer, hustler, melon paramour" (Gibson 23)... However in a letter of response to Gibson's article, Knoxvillian Buzz Kelley writes that Sheddan was "probably [McCarthy's] best and most loyal friend from the Knoxville crowd," holder of two master's degrees, and not at all "a violator of vegetables nor one to fornicate with fruits."" (Dianne C. Luce, Reading the World: Cormac McCarthy's Tennessee Period, 2009, University of South Carolina Press, p. 196). From the collection of I.D. "Nash" Flores III.