Biographical sketch of J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger (Jerome David Salinger) was born in New York City in 1919
to Sol and Miriam Jillich Salinger (his father was Jewish; his mother, Scotch
Irish). He has a sister Doris 8 years his senior. He attended public schools
on Manhattan's upper West Side, the private McBurney School in Manhattan, and
then Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in
1936. His college experience was brief: a summer session at New York
University, a short-story writing class at Columbia University taught by Whit
Burnett, co-editor of Story, and a short period at Ursinus College in
Pennsylvania.
Of further biographical note is his military service during
World War II, including counter-intelligence training in Devonshire, England
(the setting for part of "For Esme-with Love and Squalor")
In 1955 he married Claire Douglas; they have a daughter and a son.
Salinger is noted for what has been called a "reverse exhibitionism,"
that is, a determination to keep his life private.
By 1941, when he was 22, Salinger was publishing in well-paying
magazines such as Collier's and Esquire.
It was in 1948 that he began to find real recognition, with
the publication of three stories which later were to appear in the collection,
Nine Stories: "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,"
and "Just Before the War with the Eskimos," all appearing in the New Yorker,
certainly a prestigious sign. In 1949 and 1950 three more stories from his
collection were published - "The Laughing Man," "Down at the Dinghy," and
"For Esme - with Love and Squalor."
The Catcher in the Rye became upon publication
in 1951 what might be termed an almost-immediate success.
List Of Salinger's Works:
The Catcher in the Rye, 1951; Nine Stories, 1953; Franny and Zooey, 1961;
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, 1963.
(As indicated above, all subsequent works listed after The Catcher in the Rye
are short stories, most of them published prior to collective issuance.)
