Can somebody tell me what font this is? It's awesome.
It appears to be Caledonia, designed by W.A. Dwiggins in 1939 for Mergenthaler Linotype. The page you scanned for this sample may have been printed from metal type (or by an offset reproduction of a page printed from metal type), which would account for the "smudged" appearance.
Caledonia was one of the most popular typefaces for trade book composition in the 1950s and 60s. (The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951.) Georgia was designed by Matthew Carter in 1993.
Captured from web.archive.org on 21 Sep 2019. view this capture