Salinger's first Book Publication, RARE IN MAILER
The Kit Book for Soldiers, Sailors and Marines.
Chicago: Consolidated Book Publishers, 1942.
Price: $3,000.00
About the item
First edition, first issue. Numerous color and black-and-white cartoon illustrations. Oblong 8vo. Salinger's first Book Publication, RARE IN MAILER. Publisher’s illustrated boards with some rubbing from being housed in mailer, some darkening to pages otherwise near fine. Original printed pictorial mailing carton; some spots of soiling, but generally very good and never used for mailing. Housed in custom burgundy half-morocco slipcase and chemise. Slawenski, J.D. Salinger, A Life, 2010, p. 38.
Item #329775
Salinger’s contribution, the short story “The Hang of It,” marked his first appearance in a book. He had written it to appeal to a wide audience with a new appetite for army stories. The story was first published in Collier’s magazine in a full page illustrated spread, which he took as an omen of worldly triumph, before it was accepted in The Kit Book, a collection of cartoons and stories by Jack Leonard, Kipling, O. Henry, Ellery Queen, Damon Runyon, and others, created for distribution to military personnel stationed abroad during World War II.
