A Novel by J.D. Salinger Study Guide Prepared by Michael J.
Cummings...© 2006 Type of Work and Year of Publication The
Catcher in the Rye is a coming-of-age novel (or apprenticeship
novel). Such a novel centers on the period in which a young
person is struggling to grow up and attempts to adapt to life
around him. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) pioneered
this type of novel in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm
Meister's Apprenticeship). An apprenticeship novel can also be
identified by its German name, bildungsroman, meaning novel of
educational development. The Catcher in the Rye was first
published in Boston on July 16, 1951, by Little, Brown and
Company. The Catcher in the Rye begins in 1950 in California,
where the main character, Holden Caulfield, is undergoing
psychiatric therapy. It then flashes back to a day in December
1949, when Holden Caulfield leaves Pencey Prep in the fictional
town of Agerstown in southeastern Pennsylvania after flunking
out. Pencey Prep is a boarding school for boys of