On Salinger

clipped from www.todayinliterature.com Salinger and the Holden Life On this day in 1951 J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye was published. Reviews were mixed, but having been pre-selected by the Book of the Month Club, the novel was immediately popular. Rare book dealers regard a good, signed copy of the first edition -- this is the one with the dust-jacket picture of a quixotic, carousel horse -- as "one of the most elusive of 20th century books." The only rare book dealer recently offering one for sale (somewhat damaged, $35,000) says that the last signed edition for sale, about fifteen years ago, was inscribed by Salinger to Harold Ross of The New Yorker. The first of many Salinger stories to appear in the magazine was "Slight Rebellion Off Madison"; this was published in 1946, but it had been purchased by Ross in 1941, when Salinger, at twenty-two, was not much older than its young hero, Holden Caulfield.