J.D. Salinger Autograph Letter Signed.
by Salinger, J.D
$20,000 · Offered by Biblio · No longer available
First edition · Signed
1944. Scarce autograph note signed by J.D. Salinger on April 4, 1944, two months and two days before he saw combat at Utah Beach on D-Day. One page from an oblong octavo autograph album bound in full leather, the note is dated 4/4/44 and reads, "Dear Molly - I just don't have anything bright to say. But I'd like to send you some of my work, and I'd like to take you to a nice place in London where we might get pretty drunk and mellow. Maybe later in The War or after. I'd like that. You remind me of very real things. There aren't many left. - Love, Jerry Salinger." The recipient, Molly Bocock was stationed at the School for Military Intelligence in Smedley's Hydro, Matlock, Derbyshire where she befriended a number of American servicemen training at the school, including Salinger, then a young writer who had submitted several short stories to The New Yorker, all of which were rejected with the exception of his Manhattan-set story, Slight Rebellion off Madison, about a disaffected teenager named Holden Caulfield with "pre-war jitters". Salinger was drafted into the army in the spring of 1942, several months after the United States entered World War II, where he saw combat with the 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. He was present at Utah Beach on D-Day, in the Battle of the Bulge, and the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. During the campaign from Normandy into Germany, Salinger arranged to meet with Ernest Hemingway, who was then working as a war correspondent in Paris. The m
- Year: 1944
- Edition: First Edition
- Binding: hardcover
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