The Catcher in the Rye was first published in 1951. J. D. Salinger's novel was released in the United States by Little, Brown and Company on July 16 of that year.
The 1951 publication followed several years of development and earlier appearances by Holden Caulfield in shorter fiction. Salinger had published related Holden material in stories including “I'm Crazy” and “Slight Rebellion off Madison,” but those magazine publications were not the novel itself.
A common mix-up comes from the novel's earlier serialization history. Parts of the Holden story appeared in magazines during 1945 and 1946, which can lead readers to choose 1945 as the publication year. The complete book, however, was not published until 1951. It quickly became a major American coming-of-age novel and remains Salinger's best-known work.