Salinger’s Letters Withdrawn From Auction Due to Low Bids

NEW YORK — A 35-year correspondence between “The Catcher in the Rye” author J.D. Salinger and his daughter Margaret failed to sell at auction Wednesday.

Bidding for the 32 letters at the Sotheby’s auction house started at $130,000 and was stopped at $170,000 because it did not meet the minimum price the seller was willing to accept, said Lauren Gioia, a Sotheby’s spokeswoman.

Sotheby’s had estimated the letters would sell for between $250,000 and $350,000.

The letters begin in 1958 when Margaret “Peggy” Salinger was 2 and end in 1992.

Spokesman Matthew Weigman said Sotheby’s was confident in its pre-sale estimate because the letters between father and daughter “spoke more in the voice of the author” than letters between Salinger and his teenage lover, Joyce Maynard. Those letters were auctioned in 1999 for $154,000.

Salinger, 82, has not published anything since 1965 and has remained publicly silent for years.