All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. It is a coming-of-age story following the protagonist, John Grady Cole, as he travels from Texas to Mexico in search of a more romantic vision of what it means to be a cowboy. The novel combines themes of identity, disillusionment, and the harsh realities of life in the 20th-century American West.