The Catcher in the Rye.

SALINGER, J.D.

$16,000.00

Item Number: 148150

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951.

Review copy of the first edition of Salinger’s debut novel, a cherished portrait of adolescence and one of the most widely banned books ever published. Octavo, original black cloth with gilt-lettered spine. Review copy, with the release slip laid in, near fine in a very good first issue dust jacket with the rear panel photograph of Salinger. Jacket design by Michael Mitchell. Author photograph by Lotte Jacob. Exceptionally rare review copy.

"The Catcher in the Rye is undoubtedly a 20th-century classic. It struck a popular note, particularly with young readers, who strongly identified with Holden Caulfield and his yearning for lost innocence… Salinger's novel was, and continues to be, a phenomenal success" (Parker, 300). "This novel is a key-work of the 1950s in that the theme of youthful rebellion is first adumbrated in it, though the hero, Holden Caulfield, is more a gentle voice of protest, unprevailing in the noise, than a militant world-changer… The Catcher in the Rye was a symptom of a need, after a ghastly war and during a ghastly pseudo-peace, for the young to raise a voice of protest against the failures of the adult world. The young used many voices— anger, contempt, self-pity— but the quietest, that of a decent perplexed American adolescent, proved the most telling" (Burgess, 99 Novels, 53-4).