Salinger letters reveal a warm, funny character
American author J.D. Salinger, who is famous world over for his classic The Catcher in the Rye, has been revealed as a fun-loving man instead of an eccentric recluse, he was reputed to be, according to newly-published letters on Thursday.
Salinger, who died in 2010 on January 27, aged 91, had gained a reputation as an eccentric recluse who fiercely guarded his privacy and shunned the publishing world after he withdrew from public life unable to handle adulation that accompanied the publishing of his best-seller novel in 1951.
However, previously unseen letters written by Salinger to his Londoner friend, Donald Hartog, which were donated to the University of East Anglia, show a different Salinger — one full of warmth, humour and friendship, who loved to travel, watch plays and eat Burger King hamburgers. He signed the letters as Jerry.
The collection, which comprises of 50 typed letters and four handwritten postcards, dating from October 22, 1986 to January 30, 2002, was donated by his daughter Frances Hartog, who got the letters after her father’s death in 2007.
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