Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye was quickly recognized as one of the most important American novels of the late twentieth century. It has also regularly topped the lists of most banned and censored books. The only novel written by J. D. Salinger (1919–), The Catcher in the Rye is one of many novels of the time to signal the end of the "American Dream" of success and wealth. Its adolescent hero, Holden Caulfield, battles against what he sees as the "phoniness" of adult American life. The Catcher in the Rye enjoys the strange and unusual status of a cult novel that is also required reading on many high school and college reading lists.

Salinger's novel tells the story of how sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield is expelled from his Pennsylvania boarding school and stays for two days on his own in...