SALINGER, J.D.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1959. Item #06594

The Glass Family Ascendant - First Issue with the “Sey-more” Misprint
A Cornerstone of Salinger’s Post-Catcher Fiction

SALINGER, J.D. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1959.

First edition, first issue - without the dedication and with the misprint “Sey-more” on p. 173, lines 12–13.

Octavo (8 x 5 3/8 inches; 203 x 137 mm.). [viii], [1–2], 3–248, [2, blank] pp.

Publisher’s original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Minimal fading to extreme edges, otherwise exceptionally fresh. In the original printed dust jacket, spine lightly faded with minor wear at extremities. A near fine copy in an excellent dust jacket.

A key Salinger title, presenting two of the author’s most celebrated Glass family narratives: Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. These works deepen the enigmatic mythology surrounding Seymour Glass, one of the most complex and autobiographically inflected figures in J. D. Salinger’s fiction.

Issued eight years after The Catcher in the Rye (1951), this volume marks Salinger’s decisive shift away from the broader social canvas of Holden Caulfield toward a more inward, spiritual, and structurally experimental mode. The Glass family stories - initially appearing in The New Yorker - form the core of his later literary reputation.

The true first issue is identified by the absence of a dedication leaf and the typographical error “Sey-more” on p. 173, corrected in later states. Copies in such well-preserved condition, particularly retaining a bright dust jacket, remain highly desirable.

Starosciak A37.a.

Price: $1,850.00