The University of New Hampshire is celebrating J.D. Salinger’s centennial year with an exhibit he likely would have loathed: a display of previously unseen photos of the famously reclusive author.

Salinger, who was born January 1, 1919, and died in 2010, spent the last nearly six decades of his life far from the public eye in Cornish, New Hampshire. The photos unveiled Tuesday were taken by famed German photographer Lotte Jacobi for the book jacket of Salinger's 1951 novel "Catcher in the Rye," but he requested the picture be removed from the book after the first printing so he wouldn't be recognized.

The collection of 17 images essentially doubles the number of public photos of Salinger, said Thomas Payne, associate professor of English at the university.

Payne said that in today's society where "narcissism has gone viral," Salinger was ahead of his time in retreating to Cornish to "pull the wall down on human interaction."

"Today, if J.D. went to Cornish ... we'd know what he was fleeing," Payne said. "The emptiness of being known but not really seen."

"Catcher in the Rye" was first published in Chinese in 1983 and has long been loved by Chinese readers.

In the end of last year, Amazon China issued a book list of 25 most influential translated books in China in the past 40 years, in which the book ranked the 10th. 

(Top image: A previously unseen photo of author J.D. Salinger is displayed at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire, the U.S., January 22, 2019. /AP Photo)