Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #120924
Cost: $19,000.00

Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger

LOVELY FIRST EDITION OF SALINGER’S CLASSIC

SALINGER, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $19,000.

First edition of Salinger’s first book, in first-issue dust jacket with photograph of Salinger on the back panel.

"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" (Anthony Burgess, 99 Novels, 53-4). With "First Edition" on copyright page. Starosciak A30. Bixby A2.

Book very nearly fine, with a couple tiny spots of foxing to preliminaries and usual discoloration at inner hinges. Dust jacket extremely good, with light wear and toning to extremities. A handsome copy.

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