Red Crane Books First Editions — The Definitive Collector's Identification Guide

Red Crane Books is the publisher you encounter when you pull a Southwest cookbook from a Santa Fe estate library and find it illustrated with museum-quality photography, or when you discover a bilingual poetry collection that treats the Spanish and English texts as equal partners rather than placing one in service of the other. The books carry a distinctive visual sensibility — clean design, strong photographic content, and a publisher's eye shaped by the arts-patron culture of Santa Fe in the 1990s. The ISBN prefix is 1-878610, and if you see it on the copyright page of a book about Southwest cuisine, Hispano santos, or New Mexico poetry, you are holding a Red Crane Books title.

I handle Red Crane Books titles regularly through NMLP intake. They appear in estate libraries throughout the Albuquerque metro and northern New Mexico, often in the cookbook sections alongside titles from other regional publishers. Red Crane Books occupied a specific and appealing position in the Southwest publishing world: it was an independent press run by arts patrons who cared about visual quality and cultural authenticity, publishing on subjects — Southwest food culture, Hispano literature, religious folk art — that mattered deeply to the communities the books documented. The press is no longer active. The catalog was gifted to the Museum of New Mexico Press in 2007. Original Red Crane Books first editions are now available only on the secondary market. If you have Red Crane Books titles to sell or donate, I handle any quantity through my free pickup service.

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

The Press and Its Origins

Red Crane Books first editions are highly collectible, with early works commanding premium prices in the antiquarian market. Red Crane Books was founded in 1989 by Michael O'Shaughnessy and Marianne O'Shaughnessy, Santa Fe arts patrons whose connections to the New Mexico cultural community ran deep. Michael O'Shaughnessy was a photographer whose work appeared in many Red Crane Books titles — his photographs of santos, Southwest landscapes, and food subjects gave the press's books a visual consistency and quality that distinguished them from other small regional publishers. Marianne O'Shaughnessy served as editor, shaping the editorial program toward books about the diverse cultures of the Americas with particular emphasis on the Southwest.

The press was based in Santa Fe and operated as an independent commercial publisher — not a vanity press, not a university press, not a museum-affiliated operation. The O'Shaughnessys financed and directed the enterprise themselves, drawing on their network of writers, artists, scholars, and cultural institutions in northern New Mexico to build a catalog. The press specialized in subjects that reflected Santa Fe's identity as a center of multicultural arts and food culture: Southwest and Northern Mexican cookbooks, Hispano religious folk art, bilingual literature, New Mexico poetry, and literary fiction about the Americas.

Over its roughly eighteen years of active publishing, Red Crane Books produced over sixty titles. The catalog was organized into named series — the Red Crane Cookbook Series and the Red Crane Literature Series — that gave the publishing program structure and identity. The cookbook series became the best-known arm of the press, producing titles on Southwest cuisine, Northern Mexican cooking, and the food traditions of specific cultural communities. The literature series published poetry, fiction, and translated works that addressed the multicultural literary scene of the Americas.

In the fall of 2007, Michael and Marianne O'Shaughnessy gifted the Red Crane Books catalog to the Museum of New Mexico Press, part of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. This transfer ended Red Crane Books as an independent publisher. The Museum of New Mexico Press absorbed the catalog, and some titles may remain available under the museum press imprint. But original Red Crane Books first editions — the books with the 1-878610 ISBN prefix and the Red Crane Books name on the title page and copyright page — are a finite body of work from a press that no longer exists as an independent entity.

Subject Areas and Their Collecting Significance

Southwest and Northern Mexican Cookbooks

The Red Crane Cookbook Series was the press's most commercially successful and most widely distributed product line. These are substantial, well-produced cookbooks that take Southwest and Northern Mexican cuisine seriously as a culinary tradition with its own history, techniques, and regional variations. The series includes titles by James W. Peyton, whose books on Northern Mexican and border cuisine — including La Cocina de la Frontera: Mexican-American Cooking from the Southwest and El Norte: The Cuisine of Northern Mexico — remain respected references in Southwest food writing. Michael O'Shaughnessy provided photography for several of these titles, giving them a visual quality that elevated them above typical regional cookbooks. These titles connect directly to the broader New Mexico food and cuisine books collecting tradition.

The single most recognized Red Crane cookbook is Margaret Wood's A Painter's Kitchen: Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O'Keeffe. The connection between Georgia O'Keeffe — the most famous artist associated with New Mexico — and the food traditions of the state gives this title a collector interest that extends well beyond the cookbook market. O'Keeffe took pride in her healthy culinary style, and the book documents recipes she prepared at her homes in Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch. The revised edition carries ISBN 978-1-878610-61-4.

Hispanic and Southwestern Folk Art

Red Crane Books published several landmark titles on Hispano religious folk art, most notably Larry Frank's New Kingdom of the Saints: Religious Art of New Mexico 1780–1907. The Frank Collection of santos — Nuevomexicano religious objects including retablos and bultos — is now in the permanent collection of the New Mexico History Museum, and Frank's Red Crane Books publication is the definitive photographic record of the collection. A companion volume, A Kingdom of Saints: Early Retablos of New Mexico — A Postcard Collection, presented selected images in postcard format. Frank published three books total with Red Crane Books, making him one of the press's most significant authors in the folk art category. This work connects to the broader Hispano literature and folk art collecting tradition.

Bilingual Literature and Essays

Jim Sagel was one of Red Crane Books' most distinctive authors — a writer who worked in both English and Spanish, exploring the linguistic and cultural territory of bilingual life in northern New Mexico. Sagel published four books with Red Crane Books, including Dancing to Pay the Light Bill: Essays on New Mexico and the Southwest, which addressed the phenomenon of bilingual code-switching and the cultural dynamics of Hispano communities. Sagel's premature death in 1998 closed his signature pool and gave his Red Crane Books titles a fixed-supply dynamic. His work sits at the intersection of Southwest essay writing, bilingual literature, and Hispano cultural documentation.

Poetry and Literary Fiction

The Red Crane Literature Series published poetry, fiction, and translated works. The New Mexico Poetry Renaissance anthology, edited by Sharon Niederman and Miriam Sagan (ISBN 978-1-878610-41-6), presented a snapshot of New Mexico's poetry community in the 1990s and remains a useful reference for collectors mapping the state's contemporary literary scene. The literature series also included translated fiction such as Ruth Almog's Death in the Rain, reflecting the O'Shaughnessys' interest in publishing works about the Americas and connecting New Mexico's literary culture to broader global traditions.

Environmental and Cultural Nonfiction

Red Crane Books published nonfiction titles addressing the environmental and cultural landscape of the Southwest, including works on the Taos Pueblo, the cultural history of specific New Mexico communities, and the relationship between land, water, and human settlement in the arid West. These titles tend toward the journalistic and accessible rather than the academic, consistent with the press's identity as a commercial publisher serving both residents and visitors interested in New Mexico's cultural depth.

First Edition Identification

Red Crane Books used straightforward first-edition identification conventions consistent with small independent publishers of the 1990s and 2000s. The key identification points are the ISBN prefix, the copyright page statement, and the publisher name and address.

The Most Collected Red Crane Books Titles

The collecting market for Red Crane Books titles is driven by the intersection of subject-area demand and the press's defunct status. While the Museum of New Mexico Press absorbed the catalog, original Red Crane Books first editions with the 1-878610 ISBN prefix are the editions collectors seek.

Top Tier: The Essential Titles

• Larry Frank's New Kingdom of the Saints: Religious Art of New Mexico 1780–1907. The definitive photographic record of the Frank santos collection, now in the permanent collection of the New Mexico History Museum. This title sits at the intersection of Hispano folk art collecting and New Mexico museum history. Hardcover first editions are the most sought-after format.
• Margaret Wood's A Painter's Kitchen: Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O'Keeffe. The O'Keeffe connection gives this title a collector audience that extends far beyond the Southwest cookbook market. The revised edition is more common; the original first edition is the scarcer and more collected state.
• Signed copies by authors from closed signature pools. Jim Sagel (d. 1998) published four books with Red Crane Books. Signed copies from his closed pool carry particular interest for collectors of bilingual Southwest literature.

Strong Collector Interest

• James W. Peyton's Red Crane Cookbook Series titles. La Cocina de la Frontera and El Norte: The Cuisine of Northern Mexico are substantial, well-researched works on a cuisine that has only grown in cultural recognition since the 1990s.
• New Mexico Poetry Renaissance edited by Sharon Niederman and Miriam Sagan. An anthology that captured a specific moment in New Mexico's literary history. Collected by poetry enthusiasts and literary historians.
• Larry Frank's other Red Crane Books titles. The complete Frank bibliography with Red Crane Books is sought by santos collectors and Southwest folk art historians.
• Jim Sagel's bilingual collections. Dancing to Pay the Light Bill and Sagel's other Red Crane Books titles document the bilingual literary culture of northern New Mexico.

Broader Catalog

The third tier encompasses the general cultural nonfiction, the less specialized literary fiction titles, and the environmental writing. These have reading and reference value but limited individual collector significance. The exception, as always, is association copies with provenance connecting them to the Santa Fe arts community, the O'Shaughnessys' social circle, or the cultural institutions documented in the books themselves.

Condition and Grading Considerations

Red Crane Books titles from the 1990s and 2000s are relatively recent productions, and condition issues are generally less severe than for older Southwest publishers. However, several factors are specific to this catalog.

Cookbook condition is the most common challenge. Red Crane Cookbook Series titles were working cookbooks used in kitchens. Expect staining, food residue, page warping from steam and moisture, and spine stress from being held open on countertops. A clean, unstained Red Crane cookbook is genuinely less common than one with kitchen wear, and pristine copies carry a meaningful condition premium for collectors.

Photographic plates in the folk art and cookbook titles are the visual centerpieces of these books. Check for plate damage, including fingerprints on coated paper, cracking along the spine at plate locations, and color shifts from sun exposure. The quality of the photographic content is a primary reason collectors value these titles, and damaged plates reduce that value significantly.

Softcover wear follows the standard pattern for trade paperbacks: spine creasing, cover corner bumping, and sun fading along the spine. Red Crane Books covers often feature color photography, and sun fading on these image-rich covers is more noticeable than on text-only designs. Copies that retain sharp, unfaded cover photography are the exception in the New Mexico secondary market.

Dust jackets on hardcovers — particularly the Larry Frank santos titles — are significant condition elements. A hardcover first edition with its original dust jacket intact is the collected state; a copy without the jacket is a lesser item.

The Collecting Market for Red Crane Books

The Red Crane Books secondary market operates at the intersection of several collecting communities. Southwest cookbook collectors seek the Red Crane Cookbook Series titles as documented records of regional cuisine traditions. Santos and folk art collectors seek the Larry Frank titles as photographic references for their own collecting. Bilingual literature collectors seek the Jim Sagel titles and the literary series. Georgia O'Keeffe collectors seek A Painter's Kitchen as an adjacent O'Keeffe artifact. Each community creates its own demand floor for specific titles within the catalog.

The transfer of the catalog to the Museum of New Mexico Press in 2007 creates an interesting market dynamic. Some titles may remain in print under the museum press imprint, which means that the content is still accessible but the original Red Crane Books first edition — the book with the 1-878610 ISBN prefix and the Red Crane Books name — is the collected state. Collectors who care about imprint and edition will always prefer the original Red Crane Books edition over a museum press reissue, just as they prefer original trade editions over book-club editions of the same text.

Red Crane Books titles circulate through the standard used-book channels: online platforms, Albuquerque and Santa Fe used bookstores, estate sales, and museum shop remainder tables. The cookbook titles are the most frequently encountered because they had the largest print runs and the widest distribution. The folk art and literary titles had smaller audiences and correspondingly smaller runs, making them scarcer in the secondary market. For broader context on how Red Crane Books fits within the Southwest publishing ecosystem, the publisher identification hub provides the framework.