Nine letters, two postcards from "Jerry" Salinger

October 24, 2013

Today on NPR’s Morning Edition, Susan Stamberg reported literary news that will please fans of the  author J. D. Salinger. Salinger’s most famous work, The Catcher in the Rye, narrated by disaffected teen Holden Caulfield, captured the imagination salinger-s-letters-to-sheard_wide-32c2ef4bd3d5b2953a09e22494c487c5c9450db6-s4-c85of millions of readers and became an enduring icon of America’s youth in the early 50s. A new documentary, Salinger, by filmmaker Shane Salerno, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman coming this fall and a companion book explore the life of the reclusive author who died in 2010. Stamberg also related the story of Salinger’s first adoring fan, Marjorie Sheard, in her twenties (as was Salinger), who wrote him to praise stories of his that she’d seen in Esquire and Collier’s magazines. The two corresponded from 1941 to 1943, and the nine letters and two postcards he wrote to her were sold to the Morgan Library in NY city which is currently showing the never-before displayed letters.

Barbara L.


Privacy, Please!

August 20, 2010

If there’s one thing we knew about J.D. Salinger, it was that he was a man who valued his privacy. The man was as famous for his status as literature’s number one recluse as he was for any of the brief novels and stories he published in his lifetime. And so what better way than to honor the memory of this great American author and his lifelong wish for a private life, than by buying his toilet? Yes, that’s right, now you too can own a piece of literary history in the white porcelain form of a toilet salvaged from J.D. Salinger’s home in Cornish, New Hampshire. Mr. Salinger’s commode has shown up recently on eBay for the low, low (low flow?) price of $1,000,000. And just so you know you’re not getting short changed, the seller assures you that this toilet bowl “owned AND used” by the author will be coming to you uncleaned, just as J.D. left it. And while many readers are eagerly awaiting the possible publication of the manuscripts Salinger was rumored to have been working on and locking away in his vault for all his years in seclusion, you alone, as proud new owner of his crapper can speculate just like this item’s seller, and wonder “how many of these stories were thought up and written while Salinger sat on his throne!” So if you’ve got a cool million you’d like to flush down the toilet, don’t worry, somebody’s got you covered.


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