An auction concluded this August at the august RR Auctions where a credit card receipt signed by the reclusive J. D. Salinger made $450. It was described thus:
Receipt for a purchase of two books at the Dartmouth Bookstore in Hanover, NH, on November 11, 2001, 2.75 x 7.5, signed in black ballpoint, “J. Salinger.” In fine condition, with an area of slight staining at the bottom. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
This was spotted by a Jot101 reader (many thanks JK) who saw the salient point in the lot – one of the books was about the writer himself With Love and Squalor: 14 Writers Respond To The Work Of J.D. Salinger.
This writer remembers Catcher in the Rye being confiscated at school in the 1960s and one of the ‘Squalor’ contributors, Walter Kirn, talks of how the book was snatched from his hand and thrown across the floor at college when he was reading it after the murder of John Lennon (it was reported that his assassin had found secret messages in the novel.) It is not uncommon for a writer to buy books about himself – we had a copy of J. Franklin Bruce’s book on Robert Heinlein extensively annotated by Heinlein. Of course being notably litigious JDS may have been looking for something to put his lawyers on to…
