Selling William deBuys Books in Albuquerque

Why William deBuys gets collected

William Eno deBuys, born 1949 in Baltimore, has lived since around 1975 in the village of El Valle, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains along the Rio de las Trampas, between Las Trampas and Truchas. He came to New Mexico in 1972 with photographer Alex Harris, both of them research assistants to Robert Coles of Harvard. Harris rented a house in El Valle a few years later and invited deBuys and his wife Anne Cave McLaughlin to stay. The first book deBuys wrote there became his University of Texas-Austin PhD thesis, and was published by UNM Press in 1985 as Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range. That book is the foundational text of New Mexico environmental history, has stayed in print at UNM Press for forty years through nine printings, and anchors every serious northern-NM environmental shelf in the state.

The corpus that followed is unusually consistent. Ten books across four decades, all centered on the American Southwest with periodic excursions (Cook’s Pacific in the saola; the Himalaya in the Trail to Kanjiroba). One Pulitzer Prize finalist designation in 1991 for River of Traps, the El Valle memoir co-authored with Alex Harris and built around deBuys’s friendship with Jacobo Romero, an elderly Hispano farmer who became one of the major Hispano voices in late-20th-century NM writing. One founding chairmanship of the Valles Caldera Trust, the federal body created to administer the 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains: Bill Clinton appointed deBuys in his final days in office (January 2001), and deBuys served as chair through January 2005, then wrote the 2006 Museum of New Mexico Press book Valles Caldera: A Vision for New Mexico’s National Preserve from inside that policy experience.

The deBuys estate-shelf pattern is correspondingly specific. UNM environmental-studies and history faculty hold the academic anchor; northern-NM Hispano households around El Valle, Truchas, and Las Trampas hold inscribed copies of River of Traps as community documents; Santa Fe / Tesuque / Eldorado conservation-policy households hold the climate-policy and Valles Caldera titles; and water-rights, hydrology, and NM-environmental-law professionals hold Salt Dreams and A Great Aridness as professional reference. The signature pool is open and active. Pricing tiers are tractable because UNM Press, Oxford, Yale, Trinity, and Museum of New Mexico Press all use legible first-printing identification (number lines or stated “First Edition” on the copyright page), and the bibliographic record is small enough to authenticate cleanly.

The complete deBuys bibliography

1. Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range — UNM Press, 1985. (PhD thesis turned environmental history of the Sangre de Cristos.)
2. River of Traps: A New Mexico Mountain Life — UNM Press, 1990, with photographer Alex Harris. Pulitzer Prize finalist (general nonfiction, 1991, one of three).
3. Salt Dreams: Land and Water in Low-Down California — UNM Press, 1999, with photographs by Joan Myers. (Western States Book Award.)
4. Seeing Things Whole: The Essential John Wesley Powell — Shearwater / Island Press, 2004. (Edited collection.)
5. Valles Caldera: A Vision for New Mexico’s National Preserve — Museum of New Mexico Press, 2006.
6. The Walk — Trinity University Press, 2007. (Three Sangre de Cristo essays from the El Valle farm.)
7. A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest — Oxford University Press, 2011.
8. The Last Unicorn: A Search for One of Earth’s Rarest Creatures — Little, Brown and Company, 2015. (Saola search in Laos.)
9. First Impressions: A Reader’s Journey to Iconic Places of the American Southwest — Yale University Press, 2017.
10. The Trail to Kanjiroba: Rediscovering Earth in an Age of Loss — Seven Stories Press, 2021. (Himalayan Buddhism, climate grief, land loss.)

Enchantment and Exploitation (1985 UNM Press) — the corpus tentpole

The 1985 UNM Press first printing of Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range is the load-bearing collectible in the deBuys corpus. It is the reworked University of Texas-Austin PhD thesis, treating the Sangre de Cristo Mountains as a continuous historical subject across Hispano land grants, Pueblo land claims, the Pecos Wilderness, the Forest Service era, water rights, the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests, and the long-arc consequences of 19th- and 20th-century land-use decisions. Foreword by Robert Coles. The first printing in original dust jacket is the collector edition; subsequent printings (the book has been continuously in print for forty years through nine printings) are the working reading editions.

First-printing identification. UNM Press 1985 jacketed hardcover; copyright page should state “First edition” with no later-printing indication. Number-line conventions vary by UNM Press era; in 1985 the press was using a stated-edition convention rather than a number line, so the copyright-page language is decisive. Subsequent printings add “Second printing 1987,” “Third printing 1990,” etc., to the copyright page; if any later-printing language is present, it is not a first.

Estate-shelf prevalence. Extremely high in the four estate profiles below. UNM environmental-studies faculty estates virtually all carry it. Northern-NM Hispano households in El Valle, Truchas, Las Trampas, and the Pecos drainage carry it as community history rather than academic reference. Santa Fe conservation-policy households carry it as the foundational text under everything from Carson National Forest land-use disputes to Valles Caldera management debates.

River of Traps (1990) — Pulitzer finalist

In 1991, River of Traps: A New Mexico Mountain Life was named one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. The book is co-authored with photographer Alex Harris and centered on deBuys’s friendship with Jacobo Romero, an elderly Hispano farmer in El Valle. Harris’s black-and-white photographs are integral. The 1990 first printing is the collector edition; subsequent paperback printings (notably by Trinity University Press) are working reading editions.

Co-authorship and signature pairing. Both authors’ signatures appear in inscribed copies. The deBuys signature alone is more common; the Harris signature alone (deBuys absent) is unusual and slightly less valuable for collector pairing because the canonical authorship is the pair. Highest-tier collectible in the deBuys corpus: 1990 first printing in original dust jacket, both authors signed, and in fine condition. Inscribed copies to a named El Valle / Truchas / Las Trampas / Romero-family recipient carry a substantial premium.

Why the Pulitzer matters for pricing. Pulitzer-finalist designation (one of three short-listed; the 1991 winner was J. Anthony Lukas’s Common Ground) lifts the sustained collector floor for the 1990 first roughly 50–100% above an equivalent unflagged regional memoir of comparable length and production quality. The premium has held for thirty-plus years; it is reliable.

Salt Dreams (1999 UNM Press)

UNM Press, 1999, with photographs by Joan Myers. Western States Book Award winner. The Salton Sea / Imperial Valley water-history book; not a New Mexico title strictly, but treated as part of deBuys’s NM-water-rights corpus by serious water-policy readers. First printing in jacket is the collector tier; subsequent printings work as reading copies. Estate-shelf appearance is concentrated in the water-rights / hydrology / NM-environmental-law professional household.

Seeing Things Whole: The Essential John Wesley Powell (2004 Shearwater)

Edited collection of John Wesley Powell’s essential writings. Shearwater Books / Island Press, 2004. The 2004 first paperback (Shearwater issued the volume directly in trade paperback) is the standard format; deBuys’s editorial introduction is the value-added scholarship. Estate-shelf appearance: serious Powell scholars, 19th-century-American-West historians, and Colorado-River / Bureau-of-Reclamation policy readers.

Valles Caldera: A Vision for New Mexico’s National Preserve (2006 Museum of New Mexico Press)

Museum of New Mexico Press, 2006, written by deBuys immediately after his Valles Caldera Trust chairmanship ended (January 2005). It is the first-person account of the Trust’s founding period and the policy decisions that shaped the early Preserve. President Bill Clinton appointed deBuys to the founding board in his last days in office (January 2001); the Trust was the federal entity created to administer the 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains north of Los Alamos.

Why Museum of New Mexico Press matters. Smaller print runs than UNM Press or the trade-published titles. First printings in original dust jacket are scarce in fine condition. The 2006 first is the collector tier and the only material text for serious NM federal-lands and Jemez-area policy readers. Inscribed copies to a named Valles Caldera Trust board member, NM congressional staffer, or Jemez-area land manager carry a meaningful premium.

The Walk (2007 Trinity University Press)

Three interlinked essays from the El Valle farm in the Sangre de Cristos. Trinity University Press, 2007. The middle essay, “Geranium,” takes its name from a mare deBuys had to put down. The closing essay reflects on drought, the loss of a friend, and the resurgence of land and hope. Smaller print run than the trade titles; first printings in jacket are collectible on the El Valle / Sangre de Cristo / contemplative-nature-essay shelf.

A Great Aridness (2011 Oxford University Press)

Oxford University Press, 2011. Climate change and the American Southwest. Has stayed in print continuously and become deBuys’s most-cited work in 21st-century academic climate-policy literature on the region.

First printing identification. Oxford uses a number line on the copyright page; full descending line ending in “1” (i.e., “...4 3 2 1”) indicates the first printing. The original 2011 hardcover with original dust jacket is the collector edition; later reissue paperbacks and the post-publication updated edition are working reading editions. Estate-shelf prevalence in the conservation-policy and water-rights households is universal.

The Last Unicorn (2015 Little, Brown)

Little, Brown and Company, 2015. Tracks the saola, an extremely rare large land mammal discovered in 1992 on the Vietnam-Laos border. deBuys joined an expedition led by American field biologist Bill Robichaud into the Nakai-Nam Theun National Protected Area in Laos. Christian Science Monitor named it one of the 10 best nonfiction books of 2015. The 2015 first printing in original dust jacket is the collector edition; Little, Brown uses a number line ending in “1” for first printings.

First Impressions (2017 Yale University Press)

Yale University Press, 2017. Iconic places of the American Southwest, with reader-journey framing. Each chapter examines an exceptional place; richly illustrated. The 2017 first hardcover with original dust jacket is the standard collector edition; Yale uses a number line ending in “1”. Estate-shelf prevalence is highest in the academic / Southwest-studies household and in the Santa Fe / Albuquerque household that owns the full deBuys corpus.

The Trail to Kanjiroba (2021 Seven Stories Press)

Seven Stories Press, 2021. Himalayan Buddhism, climate grief, the loss of place. Smallest print run of the trade-published deBuys titles; first printing in original dust jacket is the speculative collector tier. Six years post-publication, scarcity is real but not yet priced in. Watch the floor.

ABQ & Santa Fe estate fingerprint

UNM Press first-edition identification

Three of deBuys’s books are UNM Press: Enchantment and Exploitation (1985), River of Traps (1990), Salt Dreams (1999). UNM Press first-printing identification is by stated-edition convention on the copyright page rather than a number line in this era. The first-printing copyright page reads “First edition” with no further printing language. Subsequent printings add “Second printing [year],” “Third printing [year],” etc. If any later-printing language is present, it is not a first. Book club editions of UNM Press titles are rare in this catalog and not typically a confusion source for deBuys (unlike the trade-press titles).

Trade-press titles use number lines. Oxford (A Great Aridness 2011), Little, Brown (The Last Unicorn 2015), Yale (First Impressions 2017): full descending number line ending in “1” on the copyright page indicates the first printing. Trinity University Press (The Walk 2007), Museum of New Mexico Press (Valles Caldera 2006), Shearwater/Island Press (Seeing Things Whole 2004), Seven Stories Press (Trail to Kanjiroba 2021): mix of stated-first-edition convention and number line; copyright-page language is decisive.

Pricing methodology

Pricing for the deBuys corpus rests on documented sale-comp data, not asking-price averages. The base-rate tentpoles — 1985 UNM Press Enchantment and Exploitation first in jacket, 1990 UNM Press River of Traps first in jacket — have a tractable comp set across used-book marketplaces. Signed copies roughly double the unsigned tier; inscribed-with-named-northern-NM-recipient copies of River of Traps can carry a 3–5x premium when verifiable provenance is present.

For the trade-press titles (A Great Aridness, The Last Unicorn, First Impressions) and the smaller-press titles (Valles Caldera, The Walk, Trail to Kanjiroba), pricing depends on first-printing verification and condition, with the smaller-press titles carrying disproportionate premium for fine-jacket first-printing copies because of the smaller print runs. The 2021 Trail to Kanjiroba Seven Stories first is the current speculative tier — floor is rising as scarcity appears, no fixed valuation yet.

Related Pillars on deBuys’s estate shelf