An extremely rare limited edition copy of Lewis Carroll's famous fable Alice in Wonderland (estimated at $15,000-25,000) will appear alongside an altogether different kind of influential classic when it auctions at PBA Galleries, today.
 Alcoholics Anonymous was printed in New York in 1941 |
The second-highest estimated lot, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than Two Thousand Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism, was limited to just 5,000 copies for its second printing, produced in New York in 1941.
Written by William Wilson, this copy is especially scarce, being just one of 240 of those 5,000 to be bound in the leftover red cloth covers from the book's first printing.
It is further presumed that these red cloth bound copies of the second printing were distributed to prisons and other institutions.
This is certainly borne out by this book's remarkable provenance, which begins with "Frank D", an ex-convict who apparently acquired this volume from the prison library at Waupan State Prison, Wisconsin, US.
 This copy was apparently the property of 'Frank D', an ex-convict |
Sold with a letter of provenance and other related documentation, this rare and historic example of the continuing self-help phenomenon has an estimate of $10,000-15,000.
Other less-scarce copies of the book from 1942-43 will also feature in the sale with five-figure estimates.
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