Browse Meet the Writers
 
Writers A-Z

Writers by Genre
  Featured Writers  
 
Children's Writers & Illustrators

Classic Writers

Mystery & Thriller Writers

Romance Writers
 
  Special Features  
 
Author Recommendations

Audio Interviews

Video Interviews

The Writers of 2006
 
Award Winners
 
Discover Great New Writers

National Book Award Fiction Writers

National Book Award Nonfiction Writers
 
Find a Store
 
Enter ZIP Code
Easy Returns
to any Barnes &
Noble store.
Meet the Writers
J. D. Salinger
Biography
Jerome David Salinger, was born in New York City on Jan. 1, 1919, and established his reputation on the basis of a single novel, The Catcher in the Rye (1951), whose principal character, Holden Caulfield, epitomized the growing pains of a generation of high school and college students. The public attention that followed the success of the book led Salinger to move from New York to the remote hills of Cornish, New Hampshire. Before that he had published only a few short stories; one of them, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," which appeared in The New Yorker in 1949, introduced readers to Seymour Glass, a character who subsequently figured in Franny and Zooey (1961) and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenter and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Salinger's only other published books. Of his 35 published short stories, those which Salinger wishes to preserve are collected in Nine Stories (1953).

Author biography copyright 1993, Grolier, Inc.

*Back to Top

About the Writer
*J. D. Salinger Home
* Biography
Chronology
*The Catcher in the Rye, 1951
*Nine Stories, 1953
*Franny and Zooey, 1961
*Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, 1963
*Hapworth 16, 1924, 1965