The Wicked John Goode by Horace W. Scanlon - Signed
The Wicked John Goode (A True Story)
By Horace Winthrop Scandlin — Signed by John Goode
Published by The Christian Herald, New York, 1917
This remarkable 1917 volume tells the true story of John Goode — once called “everything that was evil—a drunkard, a jail-bird, a thief” — whose life was transformed through the ministry of New York’s Bowery Mission. Written by Horace Winthrop Scandlin, The Wicked John Goode chronicles Goode’s redemption from despair to faith, offering one of the most compelling first-hand testimonies of early 20th-century rescue mission work.
The book features an Introduction by prison reformer Thomas Mott Osborne and an Epilogue by Rev. J. G. Hallimond, Superintendent of the Bowery Mission, placing Goode’s personal conversion within the broader Christian social movement of its time — where urban missions sought to reach the outcast and the alcoholic alike with a message of grace and transformation.
This particular copy is a rare and significant association copy, personally signed by John G. Goode himself on the front endpaper, along with his address (“18 N. Lombardy St.”). Copies bearing Goode’s own hand are exceedingly uncommon and offer a tangible connection to one of the most dramatic recovery narratives of the pre-A.A. era.
The Wicked John Goode is a scarce and historically important work of early recovery and rescue-mission literature, published more than two decades before Alcoholics Anonymous. The story’s transformation theme — from drunkenness and degradation to redemption and service — reflects the same spiritual principles that would later inform A.A. and other 20th-century recovery movements.
Signed examples by John Goode himself are exceptionally rare, making this copy a significant artifact for collectors of Bowery Mission history, early temperance literature, and the roots of spiritual recovery in America. Surviving copies in dust jacket are seldom encountered.
Publication Details:
Copyright © 1916, 1917 by The Christian Herald; additional copyright 1917 by George H. Doran Company
Publisher’s original gray cloth with dark-blue lettering and fleur-de-lis designs on front and spine
Introduction by Thomas Mott Osborne
Epilogue by Rev. J. G. Hallimond, Superintendent of the Bowery Mission
Condition:
Very Good book in worn but scarce dust jacket. Cloth boards clean, bright, and well preserved. Blue title stamping remains sharp. Pages clean with light, even toning throughout. Binding tight and square. Front endpaper signed and inscribed “John G. Goode,” with address; pencil ownership name on blank leaf. Original dust jacket present but fragile, with significant edge wear, tears, and chipping — now protected in archival mylar.
