The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye: first edition first printing.
A bright copy of this iconic work preserved in its publisher’s cloth with its original dust jacket, as issued.
Octavo, publisher’s black cloth, spine lettering rubbed, original pictorial dust jacket with portrait of Salinger on rear panel, a few spots. Housed in a custom slipcase.
196 x 133 mm.
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye.
Boston, Little, Brown and Company,1951.
First edition first printing of the author’s first book.
Catcher's protagonist, Holden Caulfield, has entered the pantheon of American literary heroes as an exemplar of postwar youthful rebellion. In years following WWII, "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, pp. 53-54).
The hero-narrator of "The Catcher in the Rye" is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. He leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices -- but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. He issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure.
"In American writing, there are three perfect books, which seem to speak to every reader and condition: 'Huckleberry Finn,' 'The Great Gatsby,' and 'The Catcher in the Rye.' Of the three, only 'Catcher' defines an entire region of human experience: it is-in French and Dutch as much as in English-the handbook of the adolescent heart." (Adam Gopnik writing for "The New Yorker" Feb. 8, 2010).
When J. D. Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, he could not have foreseen that it would become one of the best known and popular novels to emerge from post-war America and make him internationally famous. Salinger’s absence from the public eye has not stopped Catcher from finding new readers every year: it has sold millions of copies, been translated into many languages and consistently appears near the top polls of favorite novels, alongside other key texts of American literature like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However, Salinger’s novel has attracted controversy as well as acclaim: although popular, it has been removed from many high school reading lists for fear that its expletives, sexual content and the “anti-social” behaviour of its protagonist may corrupt young readers.
Salinger's book retains the freshness it had when first published, and it stands as one of the great fictional accomplishments of 20th century American literature, included on every list of the 100 best novels of the century, and listed as number 2 on the Radcliffe list and number 6 on the Waterstone's list.
In the original first-issue dust jacket, with the extreme top of Salinger's head cropped, and the $3.00 price intact on the front flap.
A bright copy of this iconic work preserved in its publishers’ cloth and its original dust jacket, as issued.
