J.D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye, has died at age 91. In a statement delivered through Salinger’s literary representative, the author’s son confirmed Salinger died of natural causes after living for decades in self-imposed isolation in a remote house in Cornish, NH. Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye featured immortal protagonist Holden Caulfield, who went on to become American lit’s most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel has sold more than 60 million copies worldwide, and ranks among the most important American literary works. Along with novellas Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour — An Introduction, his last published story, Hapworth 16, 1928, ran in The New Yorker in 1965. As a youth, Salinger had a history of trouble in the schools he attended, much like Holden, and was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy at age 15, where he wrote at night by flashlight. He published his first fiction in 1940, in Story magazine. By 1952, he’d moved to Cornish, marrying Claire Douglas, with whom he had two children, Peggy and Matthew, before divorcing her in 1967. He remained reclusive until his death.