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New releases set to shed light on reclusive author J.D. Salinger

A series of posthumous books are planned, along with a biography of the reclusive author

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A 1951 photo shows J.D. Salinger, who died in 2010. Photo: AP

The authors of a new J.D. Salinger biography are claiming they have cracked one of publishing's greatest mysteries: What novelist was working on during the last half century of his life.

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Between 2015 and 2020, a series of posthumous Salinger releases are planned, according to , written by David Shields and Shane Salerno and due to be published on September 3.

Providing by far the most detailed report of previously unreleased material, the book's authors cite "two independent and separate sources" who they say have "documented and verified" the information. One of the Salinger books would centre on protagonist Holden Caulfield and his family, including a revised version of an early, unpublished story . Other volumes would draw on Salinger's second world war years and his immersion in Eastern religion.

A publication called would feature additional stories about the Glass family of and other Salinger works.

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does not identify a prospective publisher. Little, Brown and Company, which released Salinger's other books, declined to comment. Salinger's son, Matt Salinger, who helps run the author's literary estate, was not available for comment.

No Salinger book came out after the early 1960s, as the author increasingly withdrew from public life.

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