Which American author wrote the 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye?

J. D. Salinger wrote the 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye.

Salinger’s novel follows Holden Caulfield, a 16-year-old expelled from Pencey Preparatory School who wanders through New York City. Its conversational first-person narration, focus on adolescent alienation, and attacks on “phoniness” made it one of the best-known American novels of the 20th century.

The book grew out of Salinger’s earlier stories about Holden. “I’m Crazy,” published in 1945, and “Slight Rebellion off Madison,” published in The New Yorker in 1946, contain early versions of the character and situations later developed in the novel. The book was published by Little, Brown and Company on July 16, 1951.

A frequent mix-up is confusing Salinger with Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or John Steinbeck, all major American authors of the period. Salinger’s other notable books include Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.