Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919-2010

Jerome David Salinger is infamously reclusive, and there are few known facts about his life. He was born on January 1, 1919, to an upper-middle–class family in New York City. His Jewish father, Sol, worked as an importer of ham. His mother, Miriam (born Marie Jillich), was of Scotch-Irish descent. His one sister, Doris, is eight years his senior. As a child, Salinger attended schools near his home in Manhattan. In 1932 he was enrolled in the McBurney School, a private institution that he attended for one year before being dismissed for poor grades. He was then enrolled in Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1936. He was social and active at Valley Forge, participating in clubs and school organizations and serving as editor of the school’s yearbook. He began writing short stories during his years at Valley Forge, and expressed interest in one day selling his work to Hollywood.

The years immediately following Salinger’s graduation are not well documented. He attended a summer session at New York University in 1937. He also lived briefly in Vienna and Poland to improve his German language skills and to learn about the ham importing business, in preparation to join his father in the trade. In the fall of 1938, Salinger enrolled in Ursinis College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, but he quit school mid-year and returned to New York City. In 1939, he attended Whit Burnett’s short-story writing seminar at Columbia University. Salinger’s first published story, The Young Folks, appeared in Burnett’s magazine, Story, in 1940 when Salinger was just twenty-one years old.

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