JD Salinger short stories leaked online

Three short stories by JD Salinger, which the reclusive author did not want published, have been leaked online, BBC News reported.

The Ocean Full Of Bowling Balls, Paula and Birthday had previously only been available to read at two American university libraries.
The first title, in particular, is of particular importance, as it inspired elements of The Catcher In The Rye.

A scanned copy of the stories was uploaded to a file-sharing website this week, and rapidly spread online.

The collection, titled Three Stories, features a plain black cover, and also contains a letter from Salinger to his publisher Little, Brown and Company, discussing proof copies of his works.

David Ulin, a book critic with the Los Angeles Times, said that at least two of the stories in the collection were "the real deal".

"I've never read The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls,"he wrote. "It's part of a collection of Salinger material at the Princeton University Library and available only to scholars who are supervised as they read.

"I have read the other two stories, however, at the University of Texas' Ransom Center, and the versions of them in Three Stories are the real deal."

"The Ransom Center is relatively free with its manuscripts; visitors can even have photocopies made, although they are prohibited from circulating the work.

"It's more difficult to imagine how a manuscript was copied from the Princeton Library, but in this digital age, I have little doubt that it could be done."

Salinger's only published novel, The Catcher In The Rye is a tale of teenage angst which has gone on to become one of the most influential American novels of the modern era, selling more than 65 million copies.

The Ocean Full Of Bowling Balls is a prequel to the story of its idealistic outcast, Holden Caulfield, and recounts the death of his younger brother Kenneth - renamed Allie in the subsequent novel

It was originally scheduled to appear in Harper's Bazaar, but Salinger withdrew it before publication.