8vo. Original cloth, top edge stained orange (slight sunning near top edge of boards); in unclipped dust jacket (small chip with loss to front panel near top edge, closed tear at bottom edge, small tape repair near head verso); cloth folding case.

FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK. The title of this contemporary American novel has entered the language more seamlessly than any other. However, "Catch 22" was not the book's original title. In the late '50s, when a chapter was published in the anthology New American Writing, Heller was calling the novel "Catch 18." He only changed it to Catch 22 the following year when Leon Uris published his bestselling World War II novel Milo 18, beating Heller to the number and begetting a cliché destined to be with us for decades to come. Burgess, 99 Novels, 79.