Letters Reveal JD Salinger Was Still Writing After He Stopped Publishing
February 16, 2010
The Guardianreports that letters JD Salinger was continuing to write even after he stopped publishing.
The 11 letters, written between 1951 and 1993, were sent to his friend of more than 40 years E Michael Mitchell, who at one point Salinger addresses, Holden Caulfield-style, as "Buddyroo". They show that he would start work every morning at six, or seven at the latest, refusing to be interrupted "unless absolutely necessary or convenient", according to a report in the New York Times, which revealed that the letters were to be made public at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
A 1966 letter points to "ten, 12 years' work [which includes] two particular scripts – books really - that I've been hoarding at and picking at for years," the New York Times reported, while in 1951, the author refers to a trip to London just before The Catcher in the Rye was published, during which he visited the home of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh for cocktails. "Naturally, some gin went up my nose. I damn near left by the window," Salinger wrote.
The letters were donated to New York museum museum in 1998 but the content of the letters were not revealed until JD Salinger's death. A documentary coming out this spring will reveal that Salinger allegedly had a "secret vault" with 45 years of unpublished writings.
