Copy of The Catcher in the Rye First Edition 1951 Cover Design (1991 Paperback)

The Catcher in the Rye’s first edition cover design, published by Little, Brown and Company in July 1951, is a great example of a wider avant-garde revival immediately following the generational trauma caused by WWII. In this cover design, E. Michael Mitchell evokes frenzied suffering with brutal and unsettling but alienating, abstract imagery.

Mitchell boldly chose to focus the design on an impaled horse, amid a backdrop of a city engulfed in clouds, which could almost as easily be seen as smoke as precipitation. But, as the avant-garde often did, he provided his audience with a fever dream-like distance through which to observe it. This distance was further served by the fulfillment of Salinger’s wish that the character not be personified at all. This disturbing, strangely half-real illustration likely spoke powerfully to an audience still struggling to make sense of the horrors and shared trauma of an only recently resolved great conflict. 

Mitchell’s ambiguous depiction of the city in the background could easily register multiple ways. At a squint, one could almost see this city as a burning 1941 London, which he himself flew combat missions to defend during the German Blitzes. As it so happens, cracking the book inside the striking cover reveals that it’s 1948 New York, still embroiled in the very same, fundamentally human conflict and aggression that led to a war whose memory the world was still struggling to make peace with. 

In the impressive, if unsettling, design Mitchell created, we can clearly observe an artist and a history, and the important lesson that the two are at all moments intertwined.

Ellen Cazier

Citations

Leifpeng. “Where Did You Go, Michael Mitchell?” Where Did You Go, Michael Mitchell?, 17 Aug. 2012, todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/08/where-did-you-go-michael-mitchell.html. 

Stineback, Andrea. “Changing Covers.” The Catcher in the Rye: Cultural Icon, 2015, catcherculturalicon.weebly.com/changing-covers.html. 

Wilson, Chris. “Discover the Drawing Magic of E Michael Mitchell.” Chris Wilson Studio, 2024, chriswilsonstudio.com/e-michael-mitchell/.