The Cormac McCarthy Journal

The Cormac McCarthy Journal

Cover of The Cormac McCarthy Journal Vol. 14, No. 2 (2016), featuring a photograph of the author by Derek Shapton
Discipline	Cormac McCarthy studies American literature literary criticism
Language	English
Edited by	Stacey Peebles
Publication details
History	2001–present
Publisher	Penn State University Press (United States)
Frequency	Biannual
Impact factor	0.1 (2022)
Standard abbreviations ISO 4 (alt) · Bluebook (alt1 · alt2) NLM (alt) · MathSciNet (alt )
ISO 4	Cormac McCarthy J.
Indexing CODEN (alt · alt2) · JSTOR (alt) · LCCN (alt) MIAR · NLM (alt) · Scopus
ISSN	2333-3073 (print) 2333-3065 (web)
LCCN	2009263299
JSTOR	cormmccaj
OCLC no.	49857355
Links
Journal homepage

The Cormac McCarthy Journal is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal of literary criticism dedicated to the study of the American author Cormac McCarthy (1933–2023). The journal launched in 2001 as an annual publication of the Cormac McCarthy Society. Since 2015, issues are published on a biannual basis by the Penn State University Press.

After decades in obscurity, McCarthy achieved his first mainstream commercial breakthrough with the bestselling novel All the Pretty Horses (1992), drawing new attention from critics and scholars. The Cormac McCarthy Society was established in 1993 as a literary society promoting study of his works. The journal originated with papers published online at the society's website before the appearance of its first print edition. Its contents have focused on literary criticism of McCarthy's works as well as biographical and historical research on topics related to his life and fiction.

The journal has been a major exponent of McCarthy studies since its inception. According to the literary scholar Steven Frye, it developed from "a publication committed to the interests of a small group of like-minded scholars" into "a fully developed professional academic journal, indexed in all major outlets."^[1] While there are many academic journals about specific authors, The Cormac McCarthy Journal is a rare example of such a journal founded while the author in question was still alive.^[2]