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"Three unpublished stories by the famously reclusive American writer, J.D. Salinger, have leaked online after appearing on an eBay auction. \nThe auction, which ended Sep. 23, 2013, advertised a book containing three stories, titled \"Untitled or Paula,\" \"Birthday Boy,\" and \"The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls\". The first two stories are dated 1941 and 1946, respectively, while the third one doesn't have a date. \nSee also: 'Salinger' Trailer Teases Tale of Reclusive Author's Demons\nThe auction, which had the book located in Brentford, London, UK, was ultimately won for $109.88. \nNow, the scan of the book has appeared on (members-only) torrent site what.CD and in the form of an Imgur album which was posted on Reddit. \n\nThe stories, while unpublished, are not completely new to scholars \u2014 they were available to read under supervision at the Princeton University library and the University of Texas's Harry Ransom Center. BuzzFeed contacted Salinger scholar Kenneth Slawenski, who has confirmed their authenticity . \n\u201CWhile I do quibble with the ethics (or lack of ethics) in posting the Salinger stories, they look to be true transcripts of the originals and match my own copies,\u201D said Slawenski. \nThe importance of the leak is enormous. Salinger was almost completely out of public view in the last 45 years of his lilfe \u2014 he published his last original work in 1965, and died in 2010. However, throughout the years there were constant rumors that the author was actually writing all this time \u2014 including some sort of follow-up to the amazingly successful novel \"The Catcher in the Rye\". \nOne of the three stories unearthed today, \"The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls,\" is indeed connected to that novel, as one of the characters is Kenneth Caulfield, also known as Allie and brother of the main protagonist Holden Caulfield from \"The Catcher in the Rye\". \nSalinger's family is scheduled to publish some of the author's works in 2015 and onwards, but this particular story \u2014 as per the terms of Salinger's donation to Princeton University \u2014 cannot be published earlier than 2060. \nWe'll probably hear a lot more about these three stories in the days ahead. Besides the literary importance of the works, one of the burning questions is the origin of the stories, and how they ended up in the UK. \nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\nImage: Mandel Ngan/Getty Images, eBay"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/11/28/three-unpublished-j-d-salinger-stories-leak-online/>