•  Place of Publication: New York City

  •   Date of Publication: 1946

  •   Edition: 1st Ed. 10th Printing

  •   Binding: Hard Cover

  •   Condition: Very Fair

  •   all pages intact

  •   no dust cover

  •   liquid spill (Coffee? What else right?) evident on outside front & back covers

  •  blue ink bleed-thru (coffee?) on front inside cover

  •  well read, lays open on all middle pages

  •  slightly frayed book cover edges

  •  All the lure and trappings of the Original publishing like, like the opening page "without" the circle and triangle

  •   Works Publishing Inc 1946, instead of AA World Services Inc.

  •   copyright page with 1939 Works Publishing, and OLD AA address i.e.; Grand Central Annex

  •   old copyright notice Pan American copyright convention, showing First Printing, 1939 thru 10th printing, 1946

  •   has the OLD "By the Cornwall Press, INC." notice

  •   TOC page with the first 11 chapters, and the "Personal Stories" TOC, since there was no other story sections, as there are today.

  •   Forward with BOLDED "PRECISELY HOW WE ARE RECOVERED" versus italicized as in today's books

  •  address of the "Alcoholic Foundation."

  •  Personal Stories" page SANS the "How forty three alcoholics..." sentence

  •  The Doctor's Nightmare" title instead of Doctor Bob's Nightmare

  •   The Unbeliever (Hank Parkhurst, big book money man, Standard oil man. He and Jim Burwell ("The Vicious Cycle"), lead the fight against too much talk of God in the 12 steps, which resulted in the  compromise "God as we understood Him."

  •  Hank basically wrote "To Employers"

  •   A Feminine Victory, Florence Rankin - was the first woman to get sober in A.A. She came to A.A. in New York in March of 1937. She had several slips, but was sober over a year when she wrote her story for the Big Book. Florence helped pave the way for the many women who followed. She was in Washington by the time Marty Mann ("Women Suffer Too"), the next woman to arrive in A.A. in New York, entered the program. Eventually Florence started drinking again and disappeared. Fitz Mayo ("Our Southern Friend") found her in the morgue. She had committed suicide.

 •   A Business Man's Recovery, William Ruddell first got sober in February 1937. When the Alcoholic Foundation was established 1938, he was appointed as a trustee. He almost immediately got drunk  and was  replaced by Harry Brick ("A Different Slant") 

  •   A Different Slant, Harry Brick, sobriety was probably  June 1938. It  is said that he sued to get the money he had loaned A.A. to get the Big Book published refunded. He is believed to be "Fred, a partner in a well known accounting firm" whose story is told on pages 39 through 
43 of the Big Book. Harry served on the first board of trustees of the Alcoholic Foundation, replacing Bill Ruddell, who got drunk. Soon Harry was drunk, too.

  •  The Back-Slider, Walter Bray, first joined A.A. in  September 1935. He was known as a notorious alcoholic and a regular consumer of paregoric, an over-the-counter opiate then easily available 
to the general public. When he wrote his story he had been sober about a year, and intended to stay close to what he had proven was good for him. Every day he asked God to keep him sober for twenty-four hours. "He has never let me down yet." His wife, Marie, wrote the story "An Alcoholic's Wife," which also appears in the 1st edition.