CATCHER IN THE RYE
Raymond Chandler's personal copy of the first UK edition of this enduring portrait of adolescent angst.
Very good plus in a very good plus jacket.
Price: $8,500.00
CATCHER IN THE RYE
"Very few writers can write effectively about children. Salinger, for example, can." — Raymond Chandler in a letter to Helga Green, 1957
A fascinating association. Chandler and Salinger shared a UK publisher, Hamish Hamilton, and Chandler almost certainly received this copy from them (probably at his request); Chandler's holographic annotation "HH" appears below his ownership stamp on the front free endpaper. Indeed it's easy to imagine how Salinger's insistence on authenticity might have appealed to the creator of the no-nonsense Philip Marlowe. Further, there's something of an almost hardboiled flavor to much of Holden Caulfield's dialogue ("Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phoney. I could puke every time I hear it." "I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life."). According to biographer Tom Hiney, Chandler (though often highly critical of other novelists — and especially of their literary pretensions) "was not dismissive of all contemporary fiction. He considered [...] A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE [...] 'wonderful', a word he would also use for J.D. Salinger's CATCHER IN THE RYE" (186). Chandler would also praise Salinger in a 1957 letter: "Very few writers can write effectively about children. Salinger, for example, can." An important copy of Salinger's classic and still-controversial novel, linking two of the most distinctive voices of midcentury US literature.
Read more: Hiney, Raymond Chandler: A Biography; Chandler, The Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, 462; Sublette, J.D. Salinger: An Annotated Bibliography 1938-1981, A.1.2.
The Object
First printing. London: Hamish Hamilton, (1951). 7.25'' x 4.75''. Original full blue cloth. In original unclipped (10s. 6d. net) jacket designed by Fritz Wegner. 256 pages. Raymond Chandler's copy with his personal La Jolla ownership address stamp to front free endpaper, as well as his date stamp ("Sep 15 1951") below. Also noted "HH" (Hamish Hamilton) in Chandler's hand below. Jacket mildly edgeworn, with a bit of chipping at the spine tips. Boards barely bowed. Some minor shelfwear, toning. Overall, clean and sound.
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