It was once the most censored book in American schools and libraries. Now, the only edition of The Catcher in the Rye that the author JD Salinger signed with his childhood nickname, Sonny, is going up for sale for £225,000.
Salinger was said to have been resentful of friends and family cashing in on the success of his 1951 novel, and as a result signed copies did not make their way into the book market – an inscribed first edition of The Catcher in the Rye was sold at auction only after his death, in 2010.
This edition is inscribed by the author to family friends on the front free endpaper: “To Charles Kirtz with every good wish from JD Salinger (extra greetings to Ada and Victor from Sonny Salinger) New York 10/18/56.”
It is being sold by Peter Harrington Books as part of Firsts: London’s rare book fair, which runs at the Saatchi Gallery from 15-18 September. It is described as a record-breaking item and one of the hardest titles to acquire in 20th-century American fiction.
Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington Books, president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association and chairman of Firsts book fair, said: “It is perhaps the most elusive prize in 20th-century literature. Auction records show only one appearance of an inscribed first edition – owning an inscribed copy would be the high spot of any serious modern American literature collection.
“The reasons for this owe much to J.D. Salinger’s notorious elusiveness. Salinger was extremely private and shunned publicity in any form, particularly the use of any biographical material to promote his work.”
The fair has a “banned books” theme and The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger’s debut novel, featuring disaffected youth Holden Caulfield – originally published in serial form – has consistently been the subject of controversy in the United States. In 1960 a teacher in Tulsa was fired, though later reinstated, for teaching it in class. In the two decades up to 1982 it was the most censored book in American schools and libraries.
Harrington added: “This copy was one of two inscribed first editions that Salinger gave to Ann Agoos, inscribed to her grandsons Charles and William. Ann, whose bookplate is on the front pastedown, and her husband, Sam, lived in the same apartment house as Salinger’s parents, at 1182, Park Avenue, New York City. Salinger was a childhood friend with their children – the mother of the recipient of this book, Ada, and her brother Victor, also referenced in the inscription.
“The signoff, ‘Sonny’, was the nickname given to Salinger by his parents when he was born. This is the only known inscribed copy of the book to be signed by Salinger using this nickname.”
In 2010 a signed copy of a first edition came to auction and fetched $65,000 (£56,000). This was considered a low price, and was due to its poor condition and the expectation that following Salinger’s death, in January that year, there would be a flood of inscribed copies on to the market, which did not materialise.
Narrated in disjointed, almost stream-of-consciousness style by 17-year-old Holden Caulfield at the end of the second world war, The Catcher in the Rye follows the protagonist as he is about to be discharged from a California sanatorium where he has been treated for depression. Its portrayals of sex, drinking, drug-use and teen rebellion made it both an instant classic and reviled. Mark Chapman was arrested with a copy of the book in his possession after assassinating John Lennon.
Other items for sale at the fair include letters between George Orwell and his publisher Victor Gollancz, detailing a police raid on the writer’s home in which they seized his copy of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, and a first edition of Nicolaus Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), considered heretical by the Catholic church for putting the sun at the centre of our solar system, which has a price tag of £2m.
The headline of this article was amended on 11 September 2022 to correct the sale figure.
