J.D. Salinger, the author of Catcher in the Rye, has had a rare moment in the public spotlight recently due to a lawsuit he’s brought to stop publication of a book based on characters in his seminal coming-of-age novel. Lisa Peete has written a very interesting analysis of the ruling in the case, and along the way concludes with a very odd comparison:

Right there on the title page [of Catcher in the Rye] is a blurb from the Book-of-the-Month Club News, telling you that the book “will recall to many the comedies and tragedies of Booth Tarkington’s Seventeen.” That novel is in the public domain now, and I have no idea if Tarkington renewed the 1916 copyright when it expired. He died in 1946, though, five years before Salinger published his book, so we’ll never know if he would have thought Holden Caulfield strayed just a bit too close to Seventeen’s William.

Following this is an extended quote from the conclusion of Seventeen.

Given Tarkington’s lack of fondness for the “new frankness,” as he put it, I really doubt he would have seen much of a comparison between Baxter and Caulfield at all.  And as far as I know, Tarkington never filed copyright infringement lawsuits against anyone!