J. D. Salinger, born on New Year’s Day 1919, is best known for his novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). After publishing stories in middle-brow magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s in the early to mid-1940s, Salinger published “Slight Rebellion Off Madison” in The New Yorker in 1946; and by 1948 with its publication of “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”—the first the first story in the Glass family saga—the magazine became the major source of publication of most of Salinger’s work which was collected after its first serial publication in Nine Stories (1953), Franny and Zooey (1961), and Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). In The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield makes this comment: “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.” From the time of publication of The Catcher in the Rye many people sought to approach Salinger, thinking of him as “a terrific friend,” but in 1953 Salinger retreated to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he became a virtual recluse until his death. His last story, “Hapworth 16, 1974,” the last story in the Glass family saga, had been published in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965; and though it is rumored that he wrote regularly every day after the publication of “Hapworth,” Salinger published nothing after the story’s appearance in The New Yorker in 1965 until his death on January 27, 2010.
Below is a chart in which Salinger’s stories are grouped according to their status as Glass family stories or non-Glass family stories. In the left column the stories are arranged in an order that best allows one to reconstruct the Glass Family narrative.; in the right column they are arranged in chronological order according to their composition date. Below this chart is an outline of the Glass Family Chronology derived from details contained in the various Glass Family stories. In parentheses are sources helpful in establishing these details.
Salinger: Chronology for Glass Family and Non-Glass Family Stories
Professor Bryant Mangum
| Ordered to Allow Logical Reconstruction of Glass Family Narrative | Ordered by Composition Date |
| Glass Family Stories:
“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” : written 1946-1948; published 1948 “Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters”: written 1955; published 1955 “Down at the Dinghy”: 1948; published 1949 “Zooey”: written 1955-1957; published 1957 “Seymour: An Introduction” written 1958-9; published 1959 “Hapworth, 16, 1924: written 1964; published 1965 |
Glass Family Stories:
“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” : written 1946-1948; published 1948 “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut”: written 1948; published 1948 “Down at the Dinghy”: 1948; published 1949 “Franny”: written 1954; published 1955 “Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters”: written 1955; published 1955 “Zooey”: 1955-1957; published 1957 “Seymour: An Introduction” written 1958-9; published 1959 “Hapworth, 16, 1924: written 1964; published 1965
|
| Non-Glass Family Stories
“Teddy”: written 1951-1952; published 1953 “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes”: written 1948; published 1951 “For Esme. With Love and Squalor”: written 1949-1950; published 1950
|
Non-Glass Family Stories “Just Before the War with the Eskimos”: written Spring 1948; published 1948 “The Laughing Man”: written 1948; published 1949“Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes”: written 1948; published 1951 “De Daumier Smith’s Blue Period”: written circa October 1951; published May 1952.“Teddy”: written 1951-1952; published 1953“For Esme. With Love and Squalor”: written 1949-1950; published 1950 |
Glass Family Chronology
1917: Seymour Glass is born in February (“Zooey” 181-182)
1919: Webb G. “Buddy” Glass is born
1920: [Boo Boo is born]
1921: The twins, Walt and Waker are born
1924: Seymour and Buddy spend the summer at Camp Simon Hapworth, Maine
1926: Seymour and Buddy’s race to the drug store (“Seymour” 211).
1927: Seymour and Buddy appear on “It’s a Wise Child (“Carpenters” 7, “Zooey” 153);
Seymour gets Charlotte Mayhew a place on “It’s a Wise Child” (“Carpenters” 81); Seymour tells Buddy how to play marbles ( “Seymour” 202).
1929: The Glasses move to the East Seventies (“Zooey” 74); Zachary “Zooey” Glass is born (“Carpenters” 3); Seymour hits Charlotte Mayhew with rock (“Carpenters” 80)
1930: Waker gives away his new bicycle (“Seymour” 205).
1932: Seymour enters Columbia University at age 15 (“Carpenters” 26)
1933: Seymour is thrown off “It’s a Wise Child” after comment about Abraham Lincoln. Buddy quits the show (“Carpenters” 73-74).
1934: Birth of Franny Glass (“Carpenters” 3); Seymour reads story to Franny
(“Carpenters” 3).
1936: Seymour receives doctorate from Columbia University (“Seymour” 156).
1940: Buddy takes story writing class under “Professor B” at Columbia University (“Seymour” 154); Seymour and Buddy move into 79th St. apartment on 79th St. (“ Seymour” 160).
1941: Seymour is drafted (“Carpenters” 9, 26); Seymour attempts suicide by slashing his (“Carpenters” 70); Seymour starts relationship with Muriel Fedder (“Carpenters” 9, 72-73).
1942: Boo Boo ( Beatrice) Glass is elisted in the navy; Buddy has pleurisy (“Carpenters” 6).; May 22 or 23: Letter from Boo Boo to Buddy requesting that he represent the family at Seymour’s wedding to Muriel (“Carpenters” 3); June 4: Seymour and Muriel elope.
1944: Seymour goes overseas for Second World War (“Seymour” 113).
1945- Seymour spends time in military psychiatric hospital (“Seymour” 114).
1948
1945: Late autumn – Walt Glass dies in accident involving stove in Japan at age 22 (“Uncle Wiggily” 33).
1946: Buddy locates in a farmhouse in New York State without phone (“Seymour”
138).
1948: Seymour back from Europe (“Seymour” 113, 134); March 19 – Seymour commits suicide in Florida (“Bananafish” 18); Buddy writes “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (“Seymour” 112).
1951: Buddy publishes The Catcher in the Rye (“Seymour” 112).
1953: January – Buddy publishes “ Teddy” (“Seymour” 176).
1955: November – Franny faints in a restaurant and returns home to New York to recover from emotional or spiritual crisis. Buddy begins “Zooey” (“Zooey” 50).
1959: Buddy writes “ Seymour: An Introduction” (“Seymour” 106).
1965: May 28 – Buddy receives (from Bessie) letter written by Seymour in 1924 from Camp Hapworth (“Hapworth” 32).
The chronological details for both the composition and publication chronology as well as the Glass family chronology come from several places, including both Warren French books and the Dead Caulfields web site (which is based on sound research, often grounded in letters in the archives at the University of Texas. You can find a fuller chronology than the one above by going to that site: http://www.deadcaulfields.com/)
Bryant Mangum 