Joseph Heller letter goes up for auction

Joseph Heller's novel "Catch-22" is considered one of the most important books of the 20th century. And now, you have the chance to own a piece of history relating to the book.

Auction house Nate D. Sanders has a personal letter from Heller up for auction online. The correspondence is addressed to Professor James Nagel of Northeastern University and dates to the early 1970s - more than a decade after Heller's novel was published.

The content of the letter is personal and candid. Heller writes about his time serving as a a bombardier in WWII and the writers and books that influenced him while he was writing "Catch-22."

In a portion of the letter Heller writes, "I was about thirty when I began thinking about Catch-22. These were the years of the Cold War, the McCarthy period, the Eisenhower years, the Korean War, and it was a sensibility shaped by these factors that infused the book rather than my own literal experiences."

Heller cites books such as "Laughter in the Dark" by Nabokov, "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner and T.S. Eliot's long poem "The Wasteland" as having special influence while he was writing his own masterwork.

The auction takes place until Nov. 8 and the bidding is expected to reach between $2,000 and $5,000. You can currently bid online at www.natesanders.com.