Great Regulars: It was [Ian] Hamilton's attempt to quote passages

from [J.D.] Salinger's letters that provoked a legal battle that led all the way to the Supreme Court and ended with a victory for the reclusive novelist. The biographer was found to have infringed on his subject's copyright, and Hamilton's book, "In Search of J.D. Salinger," had to be published without what he called, wistfully, the "expressive heart" of Salinger's distinctive style.

It is in search of that heart that Salinger's readers, so long deprived of any glimpse of his private life, will surely start flocking to the Morgan. Even before you read them--as I had the opportunity to do during a recent visit--the letters' mere physical presence has a certain aura.

from Adam Kirsch: The Wall Street Journal: From J.D., P.O. Box 32

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