All the Pretty Horses

The first in his legendary Border Trilogy, All The Pretty Horses was Cormac McCarthy's breakthrough novel – a coming-of-age western that remains a classic of American literature.

‘His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power' – Stephen King, author of The Shining and the Dark Tower series

'All the Pretty Horses is indisputably a masterpiece' – Financial Times

1949. At sixteen years-old, John Grady Cole is the last bewildered survivor of long generations of Texas ranchers. Finding himself cut off from the only life he has ever wanted, he sets out for Mexico with his friend Lacey Rawlins. Befriending a third boy on the way, they find a country beyond their imagining: barren and beautiful, rugged yet cruelly civilized; a place where dreams are paid for in blood.

A grand love story, Cormac McCarthy's novel is about the passing of childhood, of innocence and a vanished American age.

‘One of the greatest American novels of this or any time’ – Guardian

Adapted into a film starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz.

All the Pretty Horses is followed in the Border Trilogy by The Crossing and Cities of the Plain.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.