8vo. Original black cloth, gilt-lettered spine; in unrestored unclipped dust jacket (extremities a bit toned, chipping and a few short closed tears, some splitting to front joint).

FIRST EDITION, IN THE FIRST ISSUE DUST JACKET printed in red, black and yellow with cropped photograph of Salinger on rear cover, and flap priced at $3.00. 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).