Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1951. First edition. A virtually pristine copy of this iconic work. Book Fine, unread and unmarked in a Fine dust jacket. The jacket is bright as the day it was issued. There is a very faint crease running down the spine, visible from the verso, otherwise as perfect a copy as can be imagined. Easily the finest copy that we have seen.

Salinger's novel was not the first coming-of-age story to highlight teenage angst, but it sits squarely as the pinnacle of those efforts. It offers Holden Caulfield's perspective on school, New York City, sexuality, family and friends, and, of course, phonies, with a subtext on alienation and loneliness running throughout the book. “In American writing, there are three perfect books, which seem to speak to every reader and condition: 'Huckleberry Finn,' 'The Great Gatsby,' and 'The Catcher in the Rye.' Of the three, only 'Catcher' defines an entire region of human experience: it is—in French and Dutch as much as in English—the handbook of the adolescent heart.” (Adam Gopnik writing for "The New Yorker" Feb. 8, 2010). Fine in Fine dust jacket. (Item #2191)