Rare and hard to find AA Spirituality Books,
Oxford Group Books and Temperance Books
List by Webmaster
A
A New Pair of Glasses by Chuck C 1985 $35
A Sober Faith G Aiken Taylor
AA Way of Life 1st edition $70 to $110 AA World Sevices 1967
AA Comes of Age AA World Services 1st Edition $35
AA Comes of Age AA World Services 1st Edition Harper Edition $700
Agony of Alcoholism Judge Bill C $35 - $50
An Interpertation of the Twelve Steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous Program
printed 1947 reprinted 1952 as little Red Book
Asylum NY Harcourt, Brace, 1935 Seabrook, William.
Alcohol Science and Society, (Alcohol, 1945) Jellinek Yale University Yale Lectures
Alcohol Explored. NY: Doubleday & Co., 1942 H.W Haggard & E. M. Jellinek.
Alcohol And Drug Sickness (1934) Charles B Towns
Alcohol One Man’s Meat Strecker and Chambers 1938
An Alcoholic to His Sons. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1954 (D) Henry Beetle Hough
Alcoholics Anonymous 1st Edition 1939 $5000- $10000
Baccus Revisited Johnson, Vernon E. NY: Harper & Row
Beware the 1st Drink!! The Washingtonian Temperance society and AA - 1991 Blumberg Pittman 278 pages $30 -$50
Bill Wilson photo 8 X 12 autographed $500
Body Mind and Spirit Elwood Worcester Samuel McComb 1932 Charles Scribner NY (Emmanuel Movement) $30 $50The Big Bender Charles Clapp $400 -$700
The Big Bender Charles Clapp $150 Reprint contains all three of his books private issue
Carpenter on the Use and Abuses of Alcoholic Liquor by William B Carpenter MD 1856
(and later) Published by Henry C Lea Philadelphia $100
Chuck C New Glasses 1st Edition $100 (blue dust jacket)
Clancy Got Better Clancy Jay R Clancey $50
Common Sense of Drinking by Richard Peabody $300-$600
Confessions of An English Opium-Eater (1821) Thomas DeQuincey's
Conversion of the Church Sam Shoemaker $100
Christ and His Salvation Horace Bushnell 1908
The Christian Religion As A Healing Power, Defense Emmanuel Movement,
By Worchester McComb, Moffat, Yard & Co., Nov. 1909.
Discipleship Lesie D Weatherhead
The Disease Concept of Alcoholism by E.M.Jellinek
Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers AA World Services 1980 1st Edition $40
Drunks Are Square Pegs Island Press Charles Clapp
Drinking Is Not The Problem, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1949. Charles Clapp
The Drinker's Addiction Francis T. Chambers, Jr. With a Foreword by Kenneth E. Appel
The Eight Points of the Oxford Group. Benson, Clarence Irving Oxford University Press, 1936.
The Emmanuel Movement in a New England Town, by Lyman Powell, hard cover, 1909, $125 The Enemy in the Mouth Joseph Kessel UK: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1961 Hard Cover.( AKA Road Back) not that rare $35 -$80
Essay on Drunkenness Very Rare Thomas Trotter 1804
For Drunks Only Richmond Walker 1997 Hazelden $75 very hard to find by author of 24 Hours a Day Oxford Devotional
For Sinners Only by A. J. Russell $125 - $300
The God Who Speaks B.H. Streeter Burnett Hillman Streeter
God Does Guide Us W. E. Sangster
Five Musts. F. B Meyer
Frank Buchman As I Knew Him Bunny Austin
Frank Buchman 80 By his friends
Frank Buchman's Secret Peter Howard $25 - $50
The Glass Crutch. NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1945 (D) Bishop, Jim. $30 - $50
Habits That Handicap Charles B Towns very rare 1981 reprint available but I have not seen it
Help for the Hard Drinker (New York, 1912) Charles B Towns
Houston pamphlet 1939 1200
How to Listen. London: The Oxford Group, 1941 Bremer Hofmeyer
How to Stop Drinking : Science Looks at Your Drinking Habits by Herbert Brean. 1958 by Holt, 183 pages
I Was A Pagan by V.C. Kitchen (Victor C) NY1934 ($3500 Antique bookstore Portsmith NH)
In His Steps: “What Would Jesus Do?” New York: Books, Inc., Sheldon, Charles M.
Inspired Children Olive Jones New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933
Inspired Youth Olive Jones New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938
Liberty Magazine 1939 Morkey Morris Alcoholics and God $400 - $500
Life Changers Harold Begbie $40
Life Began Yesterday Stephen Foot $75 $200
Life Begins Today Stephen Foot
The Life of Henry B Wright George Stewart $50
The Little Red Book 1952 1st Edition Coll Web (an Interp of AA 12 Steps)
sold for $50-$200 see 1947 An Interpretation of Alcoholics Anonymous
The Lost Weekend Charles Jackson $100 (autographed by himself and his daughter) 1st Edition $25 - $50
More Twice Born Men Harold Begbie $50
The New Life Horace Bushnell 1868
One More Flight Allan Thornhill (Biography of BH Streeter)
One Thing I Know A. J Russell (Arthur James) $80
The Other Side of the Bottle Dwight Anderson $25 - $50
The Oxford Groups. London: Oxford University Press, 1933 Henson, Herbert Hensley
The Group Movement. 2d ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1934 Henson, Herbert Hensley
Oxford and the Groups. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1934 Crossman, R. H. S.
Philosophy of Courage, Or, the Oxford Group Way, Philip Leon, LondonGeorge Allen & Unwin1939
Primer on Alcoholism Marty Mann 1st Edition $50 1950 autographed $200
The Problem Drinker. NY: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1940 (D) Joseph Hirsch
Psychology of Religious Experience Francis L Strickland (Emmanuel)
The Personal Problem Confronting the Physician in the Treatment of Drug and Alcoholic Addiction
(New York: Charles B. Towns Hospital, 1917) Charles B Towns
The Power of Self Suggestion by Samuel McComb Moffat, Yard & Co, 1909, 49 pages $35 Emmanuel Movement
Principles of Jesus Robert E Speer
Prodigal Shepherd. Indiana: The SMT Guild, 1958 Pfau, Father Ralph and Al Hirshberg. $25 - $50
Reality: A New Correlation of Science and Religion BH Streeter (Burnett Hillman) 1926
Reclaiming The Drinker (1931) Charles B Towns
Remaking a Manby Courtney Baylor 2000
Remaking the World the Speeches of Frank ND Buchman 1958 $30 -$50 Blanford Press London England
Religion and Medicine Elwood Worcester
Rising Tide (Oxford Group Magazine) 1st issue $75 -$100
The Road Back Joseph Kessel (not all that Rare current $25) Alfred Knophf 1962 Also see Enemy in the Mouth
Sat Evening Post 1941 $300 $500
The Secret of Guidance. F. B Meyer
Second Birth Sam Shoemaker $70
September Remember. NY: Prentice-Hall, 1945 Taintor, Eliot. $200-$600
Sharing by JP Thornton-Duesberry Oxford Group Pamphlet $110 -$150
Soul Surgery H. A. Walter
Souls In Action Harold Begbie
Talks on Temperance Dwight L Moody 1877 Temperance House Publishing NY $25 -$35
Three Lives then Now Stephen Foot 1937 $70 (biography of Stephen Foot)
Treatise of ardent spirits Benjamin rush 1500
Twice Born Men Harold Begbie
Twice Born Men (More) Harold Begbie
Twice-Born Ministers. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1929 Samuel Shoemaker
The Washingtonian temperance society 1842 $1500 1997 reprint by Bishop of Books $30 - $50
We Come of Age- AA Pamphlet from 1st convention Cleveland 1950 $150 - $200
What is the Oxford Group? by a layman with a notebook $125 - $250
When Man Listens Cecil Rose Oxford University Press 1937 NY NY $500- $700
The Will of God A Man’s Work Henry B Wright $75
The Will of God Lesie D Weatherhead (not that rare)
Bill Wilson's Alcoholics Anonymous
Big Book
Question: What is the single most sought after and collected title in the history of book collecting? Answer: Bill Wilson's ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS.
Throughout history one of the most frustratingly incurable of mankind's many horrors has been the problem of alcoholism and addiction. In 1935, on Mother's Day, in Akron Ohio, what could be argued as one of the greatest positive events of the 20th century took place. Two hopeless drunks discovered a solution -- not a scientific cure for alcoholism, but a way NOT to drink -- one day at a time.
Not unlike the goings on almost two thousand years earlier among another group of people in trouble and in search, the very small group quickly became a community. From the dregs to the cream of society ...sitting together, laughing together, crying together, talking about strange things, people with a certain quality, a fellowship so oddly compelling that strangers dropping by out of curiosity would stay, saying I don't understand this yet BUT I WANT IN. Soon a small group of 2 or 3 became many groups, then a large community. Then they decided to write it all down.
That's where we, as seekers and finders of out-of-print and collectible books come in. The sixteen printings of the 1st edition of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, the original work and contributions of these first 100 or so men and women led by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, is out of print. It has been replaced by the current 3rd edition, revised and updated to more accurately and relevantly reflect the demographics of the current membership.
Book lovers with a personal interest in the fellowship, or those who just appreciate and understand its social, historical and medical importance, seek the big book 1st editions. In them they find a tangible link to the early formative years of the program, the history and lore of which has reached mythic proportions in some circles.
Forgetting the demand side of the supply and demand equation, the first 7 printings of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS are genuinely scarce. The 2nd through 7th each had a print run of only 5000 copies (the coveted 1st printing, the red book, having only 4,730). For those whose aspirations and/or budgets do not extend to those heights, the 8th through the 16th printings, whose print runs varied from about 15,000 to 50,000 copies, are much more affordable, starting around $400.
Almost every printing has a story or something about it that sets it apart from its fellows... The green book...the unaccountably rare (everyone's got a theory) 7th printing... the little 8th, published under the paper rationing strictures of WWII... and on and on.
In addition to the first editions, there are many avenues for one seriously interested in collecting AA material to pursue. The once lightly regarded 2nd editions with their unique reversible dust jackets have been seriously collected for the past several years now. Bill Wilson's involvement with a spiritual revival movement known as the Oxford Group Movement formed the basis of the program that evolved into ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS. Its history and literature are inextricably entwined with AA and are of a great deal of interest to those most interested in the spiritual foundation of AA. Fiction such as Charles Jackson's LOST WEEKEND, Upton Sinclair's CUP OF FURY, and biographies such as Lillian Roth's I'LL CRY TOMORROW are also possible ways to go.
The history of AA has left a paper trail, almost from its birth over 60 years ago. It is my belief that those interested in following it and owning bits and pieces of it will continue to grow just as its membership has over the years.