8vo. Publisher’s original black cloth, spine gilt-lettered (a few small stains, some light rubbing to extremities); original first issue dust jacket printed in red, black, and yellow, cropped photograph of Salinger on rear cover, flap priced at $3.00 (some toning and chipping, a few stains); glassine (chipped). 

 

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, without “Reprinted July 1951” on copyright page. IN THE FIRST ISSUE DUST JACKET with the $3.00 price on the front flap and with the Lotte Jacobi photo credit on Salinger's portrait on the rear panel. The novel’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield, has entered the pantheon of American literary heroes. “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, pp. 53-54).