Saturday Review from August 1955 - The Big Book Bible for Alcoholics

Saturday Review issue from August 27th, 1955. - “The Big Book Bible for Alcoholics” by John Haverstick.

This is a rare and hard to find 1955 “National” book review by national review magazine of the newly(1955) published Alcoholics Anonymous Second Edition “Big Book”. There were a dozen or so more national book reviews of the “First Edition” after it was published in April 1939 including the review done by Harry Emerson Fosdick. This is one of only a handful reviews of the Second Edition and the most sought after for collectors.

Here you can read an excerpt of the article:

“TODAY for those alcoholics and potential alcoholics who would like to join A.A. but who are remote from all A.A. groups the new and revised edition of "The Big Book" is now available for $4.50 a copy. (To groups the price is $4.) If you can not find it in your local bookstore the book can be ordered from Box 459, Grand Central Terminal Annex, New York City. Nobody-not even A.A. leaders-can speculate what the demand for the book will be. Only one thing is certain: that is that this edition will do better saleswise than did the original edition when it was first published in 1939. In that year A.A. Publishing, Inc., was left with 5,000 copies of a book which nobody seemed to want and for which the unpaid printer's bills were so alarming that A.A. headquarters was actually visited by a deputy sheriff bearing a dispossess notice. Fortunately for everybody, however, the old Liberty Magazine published an article on the struggling organization and shortly thereafter John D. Rockefeller, Jr., sponsored a dinner for the organization. From that moment on A.A. was a success and so was "The Big Book."

—

Please view all of the photos for the conditions.