Classics · MelancholicExpelled from Pencey Prep, Holden Caulfield spends a few days wandering New York City before Christmas
The Catcher in the Rye
A teenager expelled from boarding school spends a long weekend alone in New York
Holden Caulfield narrates in the first person. Expelled from Pencey Prep, a fictional elite boarding school in Agerstown, Pennsylvania, he leaves school early and spends a few days wandering New York City shortly before Christmas in 1949. He has a series of unsettling and disappointing encounters with acquaintances and strangers, and he eventually reunites with his younger sister Phoebe. Little, Brown and Company published it on July 16, 1951.
More about this book
Who
Holden Caulfield, who narrates, his sister Phoebe, and Ward Stradlater, Jane Gallagher, Sally Hayes and Mr. Antolini.
World
Pencey Prep in Pennsylvania, then New York City, in 1949.
What makes it different
Portions appeared in serial form in 1945 and 1946. It was the most censored book in U.S. high schools and libraries between 1961 and 1982.
Feel
Conversational and wry.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- The Catcher in the RyeWikipedia