Letters to go on display for the first time in New York show that JD Salinger wrote regularly for years after he stopped publishing
JD Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye, in 1951.
The 11 letters, written between 1951 and 1993, were sent to his friend of more than 40 years E Michael Mitchell, who at one point Salinger addresses, Holden Caulfield-style, as "Buddyroo". They show that he would start work every morning at six, or seven at the latest, refusing to be interrupted "unless absolutely necessary or convenient", according to a report in the New York Times, which revealed that the letters were to be made public at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
A 1966 letter points to "ten, 12 years' work [which includes] two particular scripts – books really – that I've been hoarding at and picking at for years," the New York Times reported, while in 1951, the author refers to a trip to London just before The Catcher in the Rye was published, during which he visited the home of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh for cocktails. "Naturally, some gin went up my nose. I damn near left by the window," Salinger wrote.
Salinger died aged 91 at the end of January after years spent avoiding the public eye. The letters show him apologising for his solitary ways, telling Mitchell that he can't answer the telephone "without unconsciously gritting my teeth", and revealing his anger at a planned biography in 1983. "I'll weep if they bother you and Bet," he wrote, referring to Mitchell's ex-wife.
The letters were donated to the museum in 1998 but kept under wraps until the author's death. They are now being prepared for an exhibition.
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