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The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most-read coming-of-age novels of all time. Written by New York native Jerome David Salinger, it was first published in 1951 and has since sold over 65 million copies worldwide.
In this original critique of the adult world’s superficiality and hypocrisy, the author follows the fortunes of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield on three days over Christmas, immersing readers in the language, thoughts and feelings of a troubled teenager on the brink of breakdown.
The Catcher in the Rye turned J.D. Salinger into a literary superstar… albeit an unwillingly one. In the years following its release, the author grew ever more reclusive, moving from Manhattan to a small town in New Hampshire to escape the limelight. Salinger was also notoriously finickity and issued strict diktats about how his book could be presented. Despite being wooed by Hollywood, he never allowed a big screen adaptation to be made. He also forbade the face of Holden Caulfield, or indeed anything else, from appearing on the cover of later editions. But did every publisher respect his wishes?
Today we’re looking back at the publishing history of The Catcher in the Rye and the often fraught cover design process.
The cover for first edition with the merry-go-round horse
The cover for the first edition of The Catcher in the Rye, published in the United States on 16 July 1951 by Little, Brown and Company, foregrounds an all-red merry-go-round horse with an off-white outline of a city in the background.
Probably the most famous of all, it was designed by a trusted friend of Salinger, Canadian artist E. Michael Mitchell.
The cover depicts a passage late in the book, when Holden’s little sister rides the merry-go-round in Central Park. At the end of the scene, Holden decides not to join his sister on the ride, thus accepting the death of his own childhood. Some have argued that the blood-red colour on the cover serves to emphasise this choice.
We don’t know what J.D. Salinger thought about this cover. But what we do know is that he must have approved it. The writer was famously opposed to the use of illustrations in his books for fear of influencing the reader.
The covers Salinger hated: Holden front and centre
Salinger couldn’t stand covers that showed the physical form of Holden Caulfield on the cover, especially his face.
Caulfield is only roughly sketched out by Salinger as a tall, very thin 16-year-old boy with one notable feature: he already has lots of grey hairs, despite his age. The first image of Holden appeared on the cover for the first paperback edition published by Signet in 1953. The art was produced by James Avati, who described the problems he had with the author, who didn’t want the main character’s face to appear on the cover.
That’s why we only see Holden Caulfield from behind on these versions, and on the British edition published by Hamish Hamilton, too. Even so, Salinger never liked them. He reportedly said he would have been much happier if the book hadn’t had an illustrated cover at all. In fact, he would have preferred the book were printed and distributed in cyclostyle. So much so that – legend has it – in the fifties the writer added a specific clause about covers to his book publishing contracts: they could only feature the title and the name of the author. No images, no quotations, no biography!
J.D. Salinger’s rainbow cover design
Unhappy with The Catcher in the Rye‘s covers produced by others, in the end Salinger decided to create his own. So he made a sketch and sent it to his publisher with very precise notes.
This simple yet mysterious design was used for the first time in 1991, finally giving Salinger a cover he wanted.
New type-only covers for The Catcher in the Rye
With a client as difficult as J.D. Salinger, it can’t have been easy for publishers to redesign covers for The Catcher in the Rye over the years. And pity the poor designer who had to work on such projects!
That much was confirmed by calligrapher and influencer Seb Lester, who, in 2009 was commissioned by Penguin to redesign the covers for all four J.D. Salinger novels published by the firm. In this post, Lester describes how he felt a huge weight of responsibility in this task, especially knowing the spiky character of the author, who was still alive at the time, having just turned 90.
Lester recalls how Salinger would only communicate his instructions for the cover through his lawyer. And that’s how, the day before he died on 27 January 2010, Lester and publishers Penguin received Salinger’s final edict on edits to the cover!
Penguin carefully followed the author’s instructions for covers of The Catcher in the Rye. And still does today, 15 years after his death. Covers are type-only, devoid of images, quotations and other frills so disdained by Salinger.
The Catcher in the Rye: covers from around the world
Sadly for the author – but perhaps happily for readers – even someone as determined as Salinger couldn’t keep in check the creative ambitions of every single publisher on Earth. That’s why, when we look at international covers for The Catcher in the Rye, we see such an eclectic bunch of design approaches: illustration, portrait, minimalist art and type only. Here are some of the best.
Spanish and Italian editions of The Catcher in the Rye with contrasting cover designs.
This Hungarian edition shows Holden Caulfield from behind. It was published in 1974.
Two more covers that more clearly show the face of Holden. Left: a Bulgarian edition; right: a Burmese edition.
Salinger would have hated them, but we love the portraits of Holden on these two splendid covers: the first is for an Arabic edition, the second a Farsi edition.
Some European editions were more respectful of the author’s wishes. Below we have French and German covers, respectively: one somewhat abstract, the other type only.
This cover for one of the most-sold Japanese versions of The Catcher in the Rye has a bizarre drawing of a face at the bottom.
To wrap up, here’s a sumptuous type-led cover design for the Chinese edition of The Catcher in the Rye released in 2019 to celebrate the centenary of J. D. Salinger’s birth.
Which cover does your copy of The Catcher in the Rye have? Which speaks to you most? And how would you design a cover for this book?