8vo. Original black cloth, gilt-lettered spine; publisher's dust jacket (toning, light chipping along extremities, light crease accompanied by damp stain to rear cover); cloth folding case.

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).