HELLER, Joseph (1923-1999). Catch-22. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961.
8vo. Original blue cloth stamped in white, top edge stained red (slight fading, slight staining to text block edges, hinges loose); dust jacket (slight soiling, edges with a few chips or tears with minor losses).
FIRST EDITION of the author's first book with the stated "FIRST PRINTING" on the copyright page. In the FIRST ISSUE DUST JACKET priced "$5.95" with the author's images on the rear panel with no blurbs. 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 called 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. The phrase is used to refer to the maddeningly circular logic used to deny leave on the grounds of insanity to the novel's anti-hero, Yossarian. The Doctor quotes the Catch 22, which states that a man "would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't, he was sane and had to."
This lot is located in Chicago.
