HELLER, JOSEPH. Catch-22. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961.

8vo. Original cloth, clipped dust jacket. Toning, light shelf wear to jacket.

FIRST EDITION. Signed and inscribed by the author on front flyleaf. "For Larry Grobel, This novel that was accepted for publication, as Catch-18, three years before it was completed, and was never rejected. Joseph Heller, May 30, 1994, East Hampton, NJ."

This first edition copy of the timeless classic contains additional traces of the novel's history in the inscription. Larry Grobel, a Hollywood-based journalist who collects first editions of books with unique signatures, writes of this particular volume, "Whenever I interviewed a writer, actor, producer, athlete, or scientist, I would bring copies of the books they had written or performed as characters in films based on those books, and ask them to write whatever came to mind about their experience. That?s how Joseph Heller came to write that Catch-22 was originally called Catch-18 but was changed at the last minute because of Leon Uris?s book Mila-18, and that it had never been rejected (I mentioned to him that I had heard it had been rejected quite a bit)."