Books

Joseph Heller. "Catch-22." New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961. Soft cover. Marked on cover "To be published October 10, 1961". Copy has the same design as the first edition dust jacket, but this is much scarcer than the first edition. Catch-22. Octavo, original wrappers; 443 pp. Light toning and some foxing to wrappers. Rare. ADVANCE READING COPY, PRECEDING THE FIRST EDITION, of Heller's masterpiece, one of the most influential American novels of the century. In original wrappers with publisher's promotional slip laid-in. "Captain John Yossarian is a bomber pilot who s just trying to make it through WWII alive. But the only excuse the Army will accept for refusing to fly a mission is insanity, and if Yossarian refuses to fly he is, by definition, sane. This is the self-devouring logical worm that lies at the heart of Catch-22, the story of Yossarian, his colleagues who respond to the horrors of war with a range of seriocomic neuroses and psychoses and his superiors, who respond to the horrors of war by sending Yossarian on ever more pointless and dangerous missions for the purpose of enhancing their own reputations. Catch-22 is a bitter, anguished joke of a novel that embraces the existential absurdity of war without ever quite succumbing to it" (Lev Grossman, Time All-Time 100 Novels). The phrase Catch-22 has permeated the English language which very few novel titles have managed to do.

Catch-22 is a satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller, first published in 1961. The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944, and follows Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier, and the other airmen in the camp, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they can return home.