IT is one of the most censored books in history, also hailed among the most inspirational of all time by British readers. Today, the controversial rite-of-passage read, The Catcher in the Rye, turns 70.

 

It’s a favourite of literature-lovers?

The coming-of-age book, by the late New York author, J. D. Salinger, was published on July 16, 1951, featuring a simple plot detailing two days in the life of disillusioned 16-year-old Holden Caulfield after he has been expelled from his prep school and bids to find truth amid the “phoniness” of the adult world.

 

It was autobiographical?

To an extent. In an interview with a high school newspaper in the 1950s, Salinger - who died in 2010 at the age of 91 - admitted the novel was "sort of" autobiographical, saying, "Sort of, I was much relieved when I finished it. My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book, and it was a great relief telling people about it.”

 

But it was controversial?

The book became a bible for angst-ridden adolescents, and along with the mystique of Salinger, who became a recluse following its meteoric success, it also became a magnet for obsessive admirers - Mark Chapman was carrying the book when he killed John Lennon. Following the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981, police found The Catcher in the Rye in the hotel room of perpetrator John Hinckley Jr.

 

It was banned?

In 1978 in the US, the book was banned in high schools in Issaquah, Washington for being part of "an overall communist plot”. Earlier, in 1960, administrators at a high school in Oklahoma, fired an English teacher for assigning the book to students, while in Ohio, one school deemed the novel “anti-white” and a commission to have it banned from local schools. One library in Manitoba, Canada, banned it for violating codes on “excess vulgar language, sexual scenes, things concerning moral issues, excessive violence and anything dealing with the occult.”

 

There has never been a movie version?

With most iconic, successful books you can think of reimagined on the silver screen, it seems surprising that Salinger's novel has not been adapted. However, private Salinger never granted permission, with his estate rebuffing bids from the likes of Steven Spielberg as actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio and even Marlon Brandon and Jack Nicolson all endeavoured to portray Caulfield at early points in their careers.

 

It certainly wasn’t a “screw up”…

The book is said to have popularised the term “screwed up”, with lines such as: “The more I thought about it, though, the more depressed and screwed up about it I got.”

 

“Catcher” has topped a new poll?

A survey of book lovers by the Amazon Literary Partnership sees it take the 10th spot in a top 10 of the most inspirational books of all time, with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird in the top spot.