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Salinger loved the short-story. This choice of medium is of great benefit to the reader, allowing for the efficient digestion of often complex and multidimensional themes. Many of his short stories are so tightly woven as to easily be rendered into book-length had the author desired. But Salinger preferred the short-story. It allowed him an ease of management and the ability to work on several pieces at the same time.
A good author can write a good book, but a good short-story requires a master.
Aside from Catcher, all of Salinger's works are short stories. Even the novel can easily be divided into segments, it's chapters having the uncanny ability to stand on their own. Salinger's larger stories have been brought together in collections that have been distributed as books. Franny and Zooey, while spoken as a single title, are actually two separate stories. The same holds true for Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.
Salinger's stories can easily be divided between his works concerning the Glass family and those that went before it. The stories written before his Glass period are presently the major subject of this site. These stories have been divided into three major categories for easy navigation:
Nine Stories
The Nine Stories (or collected stories) were selected by the author for their quality and relevance. They were gathered together into an anthology and published as "Nine Stories" in 1953 to critical acclaim. Of them, eight had been previously published in American magazines, seven in The New Yorker.
Uncollected
Salinger's "uncollected" body of work (or "the twenty-two stories") spans the length of his literary career. It begins with "The Young Folks", published in 1940, and ends with "Hapworth, 16, 1924", published in 1965. Like the Nine Stories, these pieces were all originally published in magazines at various times. But unlike the Nine Stories, they have never been legally gathered together for publication. Several attempts have been made to release them in a volume (or volumes) to the public. These attempts have been legally thwarted by the author. Consequently, accessing these works is difficult. Interested readers must often scour the magazine archives of major libraries in order to uncover them. Once found, their transcription and distribution is expressly forbidden. There are twenty-two uncollected stories.
Unpublished
Undoubtedly the most sought-after of Salinger's works are those stories which he has witheld from publication. Were they inferior pieces, there would be little mystery in their status. But this is not believed to be the case. The author's decision that these stories remain unpublished has served to whet the appetites of Salinger-enthusiasts worldwide. But the very fact that these stories have never been published put them squarely in his sole possession. It is assumed that, aside from those stories classified as being "lost", there are five unpublished works. However, we have uncovered an additional two stories, casting doubt as to the full extent of Salinger's unpublished pieces. While respecting the author's undeniable rights to his intellectual property, we have managed to expound at length on this category.
The Glass family stories are well known. With the inclusion of "Teddy" there are nine stories which fit into this category. These stories chronicle the lives of Glass family members, using their genealogy to convey evolving and related themes. In the telling of these stories, the author has abdicated his influence to the character of "Buddy" Glass. In fact, Buddy Glass tells us that he has been the narrator of all of Salinger's stories from the beginning.
An earlier, less known category are the Caulfield stories. These stories chronicle the lives of the members of the Caulfield family and Vincent's friend Babe Gladwaller. These stories not only share their characters, but also themes which tie them into The Catcher in the Rye. Including the novel, there are nine Caulfield stories, two of them resting within Salinger's unpublished works.
There is a veiled attempt at drawing these two segments of family together. Buddy Glass not only mentions a Curtis Caulfield, who sounds suspiciously like the Holden of some early Caulfield stories, but is himself a Gallagher. These are Glass questions. It is our intention to address the Glass sagas in the near future, but for now, our concentration is to do a bit less in the hopes of doing it well.
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The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls
Slight Rebellion off Madison
I'm Crazy
The Catcher in the Rye
The Last and Best of the Peter Pans
This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise
Last Day of the Last Furlough
A Boy in France
The Stranger
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Teddy
Hapworth 16, 1924
Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters
Seymour: An Introduction
A Perfect Day for Bananafish
Franny
Zooey
Down at the Dinghy
Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut
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