Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book – First Edition, First Printing 1939 – John Paul Jones Provenance – Annotated Working Copy
Offered here is an original First Edition, First Printing of Alcoholics Anonymous, published by Works Publishing Company in April 1939.
This is the first printing of the book that gave Alcoholics Anonymous its name and became known throughout the fellowship simply as the Big Book.
Only 4,650 copies were produced in the original 1939 printing. At the time of publication, Alcoholics Anonymous was still a small and largely unknown fellowship. The title page describes its subject as “The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism,” while the original Foreword begins with the extraordinary declaration:
“We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.”
The copyright page bears the original “Copyright, April, 1939 by Works Publishing Company” statement and identifies the book as printed by the Cornwall Press in Cornwall, New York.
Beyond its importance as an original 1939 First Printing, however, this particular copy carries something that gives it an entirely different kind of historical interest: identified A.A. provenance and extensive evidence of having been used as a working recovery text.
Provenance — John Paul Jones
This copy carries a remarkable association with John Paul Jones, an early member of Alcoholics Anonymous whose handwritten notations identify his A.A. roots with the Elyria Saturday Night Group in Elyria, Ohio.
Jones records that he “Entered A.A. Nov. 19, 1955” and identifies himself with the Elyria Saturday Night Group.
Nearly ten years later, on May 29, 1965, Jones inscribed this First Edition Big Book to a fellow member of Alcoholics Anonymous and his wife:
“To a ‘true champion’
of the ‘fellowship’, and
to his wife ‘Lee’, continued
success in the A.A. way
of living —
In His Grace!
John Paul Jones”
Beneath his signature, Jones gives an address of 3006 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008. Whether this represented his permanent residence or simply his location at the time of the inscription has not been established, but it places Jones in Washington when the book was inscribed, approximately nine and a half years after his recorded entry into A.A.
Research accompanying the book identifies the signer as John Paul Jones III, and available historical evidence provides an intriguing basis for that identification.
John Paul Jones III was a member of a prominent Cleveland family and a 1954 graduate of Cornell University. His father, John Paul Jones, was a celebrated Cornell athlete and successful Cleveland consulting engineer whose firm, John Paul Jones, Cary & Millar, was responsible for major institutional projects in Cleveland and elsewhere. The elder Jones later relocated to Arizona, and subsequent family records identify John Paul Jones III as a center on the University of Arizona football team during the 1955 and 1956 seasons.
While this identification is compelling, it has not been conclusively established and is presented as part of the book’s researched provenance rather than as definitive attribution.
An additional ownership notation inside the front cover adds another interesting layer to the book’s history. It identifies:
W. V. Green
5130 Connecticut Avenue
Washington, D.C.
Telephone: EMerson 8432
The precise relationship between Green and Jones remains unknown. It is noteworthy, however, that both men are associated within this same volume with addresses on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C.
Green may have been an earlier or later owner of the book, or possibly even the unnamed “true champion” of the “fellowship” to whom Jones presented it in 1965. No evidence has yet been found to establish which interpretation is correct.
Taken together, the inscriptions preserve an unusually personal piece of A.A. history: a First Edition Big Book associated with a man who recorded his entrance into Alcoholics Anonymous in Elyria, Ohio, on November 19, 1955, and who, nearly a decade later, presented the book in Washington, D.C. with a deeply personal wish for another member’s continued success in “the A.A. way of living.”
“It Says to Write It Out”
Perhaps the most compelling feature of this copy is what happened after it left the printing press.
This Big Book was used.
Throughout important portions of the recovery program are underlinings, check marks, arrows and handwritten instructions showing a reader engaging directly with the text.
The most striking annotations occur in the chapters “How It Works” and “Into Action,” particularly around the directions for personal inventory.
Beside the resentment inventory instructions on page 77, a large handwritten arrow points directly to:
“In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper.”
Across the top of the page the reader has written:
“It says to write it out.”
The same instruction appears again on page 79, directing the reader back to the list.
Again on page 80, arrows call attention to:
“We placed them before us in black and white.”
and:
“We put them on paper…”
Once again:
“It says to write it out.”
On pages 82–83, the annotation becomes even more explicit:
“It says write out inventory”
with an arrow leading from the handwritten note to the passage:
“We got this all down on paper and looked at it.”
The annotation then carries across to the next page and points directly to:
“We have written down a lot.”
And in “Into Action,” on page 87, the same handwritten instruction appears yet again above an arrow pointing to:
“We have a written inventory…”
“It says to write it out.”
The repetition is remarkable.
This was not casual underlining. Whoever made these annotations was emphasizing one very specific interpretation of the original A.A. instructions: the inventory was to be physically written down.
Elsewhere, passages in the Foreword and recovery chapters have been underlined, and the Twelve Steps themselves have been individually marked alongside their first appearance on pages 71–72.
For many books, writing and underlining are simply condition issues.
In a Big Book, context matters.
These pages preserve evidence of someone studying the program, emphasizing instructions, and apparently using the book for the purpose for which it was originally written.
That distinction is especially powerful in a 1939 First Printing.
This was never conceived as a literary object or a collector’s book. It was created by a tiny fellowship because its members needed a way to carry their recovery message beyond the handful of alcoholics they could reach personally.
The opening Foreword states the purpose plainly: to show other alcoholics “precisely how we have recovered.”
The annotations in this copy show a later reader doing exactly what generations of A.A. members have done since—opening the book, studying its directions, and attempting to understand how its program was meant to be practiced.
The First Big Book
The historical importance of the 1939 First Printing extends far beyond its rarity.
Within these pages appeared for the first time the foundational text of Alcoholics Anonymous: “The Doctor’s Opinion,” “Bill’s Story,” “There Is a Solution,” “More About Alcoholism,” “We Agnostics,” “How It Works,” “Into Action,” “Working With Others,” and the remaining chapters that established the basic program of A.A.
The Twelve Steps appear here in their original published form.
The second half contains the original collection of personal stories demonstrating how the program had worked in the lives of early members. Many of these accounts disappeared from later editions and today represent irreplaceable primary-source material from the formative years of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Among them are “The Doctor’s Nightmare,” “The Unbeliever,” “A Feminine Victory,” “Our Southern Friend,” “The Seven Month Slip,” “The Salesman,” “The Fearful One,” “The Car Smasher,” “An Alcoholic’s Wife,” “The Rolling Stone,” and “Lone Endeavor.”
The result is not merely the first edition of a famous book.
It is one of the principal surviving documents from the birth of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Condition
This copy is offered as a historically used and annotated example of the 1939 First Edition, First Printing.
The original red cloth binding shows substantial age and use, including wear and fraying at the extremities and exposed areas along the edges. The original dust jacket is not present.
The interior exhibits age toning, scattered spotting and staining, handling wear and other evidence of use consistent with an 87-year-old book that was actively read rather than preserved untouched.
There are handwritten annotations, underlining, check marks and other reader markings throughout portions of the text. Of particular significance are the extensive handwritten arrows and repeated “It says to write it out” annotations surrounding the inventory instructions described above.
The pages remain readily readable, and the volume retains the complete text through the final personal story and Appendix.
This is not a pristine collector’s copy, nor should it be represented as one.
Its appeal lies somewhere else.
This is an original 1939 First Printing that survived decades of actual A.A. use and carries within it evidence of the people who owned, studied, shared and worked from it.
Please review all photographs carefully for the most complete understanding of the book’s physical condition, annotations and signs of use.
An Extraordinary Working Copy of the Book That Gave A.A. Its Name
A clean First Printing Big Book tells one kind of story.
This copy tells another.
It begins with the first 4,650 copies printed in 1939, when Alcoholics Anonymous was still an experiment being carried forward by little more than one alcoholic helping another.
Its later history leads to Elyria, Ohio, where John Paul Jones recorded entering A.A. on November 19, 1955; then to Washington, D.C., where in 1965 he presented the book to another member and his wife with a wish for their continued success in “the A.A. way of living.”
And somewhere within that history, a reader repeatedly returned to the practical instructions at the heart of the program, drew arrows across the pages, underlined the directions, and wrote the same reminder again and again:
“It says to write it out.”
For a collector interested not only in the rarity of the First Printing but also in the history of how the Big Book was actually read, shared and used within Alcoholics Anonymous, this is an exceptional surviving copy.
