Annals of the Former World (1998) Signed First Edition Reference

Annals of the Former World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998) assembles McPhee’s four geology books — Basin and Range, In Suspect Terrain, Rising from the Plains, and Assembling California — into a single volume, with a new linking narrative called Crossing the Craton. The assembled work won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1999, recognizing nearly two decades of geological writing that made plate tectonics and deep time accessible to general readers.

First Edition Identification

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1998
• 696 pages — a substantial volume
• First edition stated on copyright page
• Red cloth binding

Signed Copy Market Values

• Signed first in jacket: $100–$250
• Unsigned first in jacket: $30–$60

The Pulitzer winner and the logical culmination of McPhee’s most ambitious project. Collectors face a choice: assemble the four individual volumes or acquire the complete Annals. Many do both.