Salinger J. D. 1919 - 2010 ScarceJ.D. Salinger autographed and addressed folder to a contemporary, Eli Waldron

An expandable file folder used as an envelope. Handwritten, and addressed with both a shipping and return address entirely in Salinger's hand. Return address of "Salinger/R.t. 2/Windsor, VT". With the folder addressed to "Mr. Eli Waldron". Postmarked 1965. 12" x 9.5", top edge absent (no doubt removed to open the folder). Large tape reinforcements along outer edges. Complete with 4 stamps and postmarked Windsor, VT, 1965. Slight sheering of paper not affecting autograph. Accompanied by a beautiful later book club edition of The Catcher In The Rye, with a crisp clean book and a slightly nicked original dust jacket. Published by Little, Brown and Company.

Salinger largely held a very quiet life of retreat following the publication of his most famous work, The Catcher In The Rye. But the time of his second publication, "Nine Stories" in 1953 he moved to Cornish, New Hampshire where he remained until he died in 2010. He led a very quiet life, shying away from any publicity and was staunchly protected by the locals who safe guarded his where abouts.

"Nobody conspired to keep his privacy, but everyone kept his privacy... otherwise he wouldn't have stayed here all these years," said Sherry Boudro of nearby Windsor, Vt., who said her father, Paul Sayah, befriended Mr. Salinger in the 1970s. "This community saw him as a person, not just the author of 'The Catcher in the Rye.' They respect him. He was an individual who just wanted to live his life." The curious constantly descended on Cornish and the surrounding area, asking residents for directions to Mr. Salinger's house. Instead of finding the home, interlopers would end up on a wild goose chase. How far afield the directions went "depended on how arrogant they were," said Mike Ackerman, owner of the Cornish General Store. Mr. Salinger, he said, "was like the Batman icon. Everyone knew Batman existed, and everyone knows there's a Batcave, but no one will tell you where it is." Salinger even maintained a tunnel between his house and his garage to escape paparazzi and the media. However, although his home in Cornish, it was just short distance from Windsor, VT, where he received most of his mail (and where the noted return address was on this envelope/folder). Perhaps this was done to further extend his privacy, however even there national magazines would stake him out for photos.

Of special interest is both the postmark date and the recipient's address. The intended recipient, Eli Waldron was an American writer and journalist whose primary work consisted of short stories, essays, and poetry. His writings were published in literary journals and popular periodicals. From the 1950s to 1970s he contributed stories and essays to The New Yorker, and in the 1960s and 1970s, a number of his poems and experimental fiction works appeared in underground, alternative, and "counter-culture" publications. Many of Waldron's fiction and non-fiction reveals a strong interest in the "underdog" and the marginalized, disenfranchised individual, as well as a belief in the possibility of triumph over (often seemingly great) adversity. Making repeated use of satire and often introducing surprise endings, Waldron consistently questioned what he perceived to be the status quo and championed those who may have been viewed as "outsiders" by people in authority or by members of society's "mainstream."-- These themes most definitely would fully resonate with Salinger and no doubt created a bond between them. (In addition, in 1951 Waldron had written a glowing review of Salinger's Catcher In The Rye) However this piece is not just an envelope, but an accordion folder, large enough to contain a manuscript, and of unique coincidence, in the year of the postmark, Salinger published his final work in June 1965 in "The New Yorker" (the same publication often publishing Waldron's works), a novella called "Hapworth 16, 1924".

A wonderful piece of history, but with added mystique. Like an empty box with an important provenance and addressee. Leaving one's mind to wander about what was the possible nature of the contents. Addressed from one counter-culture writer to another; from one famous novelist who also later in his career published in The New Yorker, to another similar themed writer who also published in the same magazine, to the coincidental timing of the postmark on the envelope to the date of Salinger's final published novella, to the ties of the two men as writer and reviewer going back decades... and all we have to base our theories on regarding the nature of the possible content is an address and postmark, and our imagination. But there is much history that is intertwined between the two that allows for much conjecture.