Why did Joseph Heller change his book title from Catch-18 to Catch-22?
Heller wrote the opening chapter under the title “Catch 18”. He was paid $25 for it and it was published in a magazine “New World Writing” in 1955 – in the same issue, interestingly enough, that an extract of “Catcher in the Rye” was published (under a pseudonym). However, following the publication of Leon Uris’ wartime novel “Mila 18”, Heller changed the title to “Catch 22”.
