J.D. Salinger was born in 1919. He attended Valley Forge Military Academy where he began writing stories. He served in World War II and was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment. After the war, he published The Catcher in the Rye in 1951 which brought him great success but also caused him to withdraw from public life. He lived as a recluse in New Hampshire until his death in 2010. The Catcher in the Rye tells the story of Holden Caulfield, a teenager who has just been expelled from his prep school and reflects on his experiences over a couple of days in New York City.