Author Salinger Wins Court Fight to Block Unauthorized Biography

Reclusive author J. D. Salinger won his legal fight to block an unauthorized biography Thursday when a federal appeals court directed a lower court to issue a preliminary injunction barring publication of the book.

Salinger, author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” filed a civil suit last October in federal court here to block Random House from publishing “J. D. Salinger: A Writing Life.”

He contended that the book by British author Ian Hamilton quoted or paraphrased, without permission, scores of private letters he wrote over a 25-year period and later copyrighted.

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed U.S. District Judge Pierre Leval, who had thrown out Salinger’s suit, and directed Leval “to issue a preliminary injunction barring publication of the biography in its present form.”

Salinger ‘Delighted’

Although Leval had denied Salinger’s request for a preliminary injunction against publication, he had delayed release of the book pending Salinger’s appeal of his ruling to the 2nd Circuit.

“We’re delighted,” said R. Andrew Boose, attorney for Salinger. “We’ve told him of the decision, and he is also delighted,” Boose added.

Boose said he did not know whether the preliminary injunction would resolve the issue. If Random House persists in its plan to publish the book, he said, a trial would be necessary.

A Random House spokeswoman, Mary Beth Murphy, said: “We will not be in a position to comment on this until we have studied the opinion.”

Question of ‘Fair Use’

The appeals court, in its 20-page decision, said Salinger’s letters, gleaned from libraries at Princeton, Harvard and the University of Texas, were quoted or paraphrased “on at least 40% of the book’s 192 pages.”