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. 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.
