Chapter One: Bill’s Story · 1st ed. p. 25 · 4th ed. p. 15
… overcome among us. In one western city and its environs there areeightyone thousand of us and our families. We meet frequently …
Alcoholics Anonymous, first edition (1939) · Foreword through chapter 11
How the Big Book changed between editions
The 1939 first edition and the fourth edition, compared word by word. The Read pages mark each of these places with a teal dot. Every changed span below is quoted from the two printed editions, with the page in each.
48,037
words compared, first edition
48,035
same words, fourth edition
254
changes, including 13 added footnotes
99.8%
unchanged in Chapter Six, the most alike
Chapter by chapter
How much of each section’s first-edition wording is unchanged. The scale runs from 95% to 100%, so small differences show. Choose a section to read it with the changes marked.
- Foreword95.9% unchanged2
- The Doctor’s Opinion98.2% unchanged13
- Chapter One: Bill’s Story99.6% unchanged15
- Chapter Two: There Is a Solution99.1% unchanged29
- Chapter Three: More About Alcoholism99.5% unchanged23
- Chapter Four: We Agnostics99.3% unchanged24
- Chapter Five: How It Works99.6% unchanged13
- Chapter Six: Into Action99.8% unchanged20
- Chapter Seven: Working With Others99.4% unchanged16
- Chapter Eight: To Wives98.9% unchanged24
- Chapter Nine: The Family Afterward99.3% unchanged18
- Chapter Ten: To Employers98.8% unchanged26
- Chapter Eleven: A Vision For You98.5% unchanged31
The resentment table in chapter 5 is not compared, because the two editions lay it out differently.
What kind of changes
Each of the 254 changes is sorted by a simple rule. Choose a kind to see real examples.
Chapter Two: There Is a Solution · 1st ed. p. 27 · 4th ed. p. 17
WE, OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, knowone hundred menthousands of men and women who were once just as hopeless as Bill. …
The Doctor’s Opinion · 1st ed. p. 1 · 4th ed. p. xxv
I personally knowthirty of thesescores of cases who were of the type with whom other methods had failed …
How the numbers grew
The counts of members and groups are the most visible change: each was updated as the fellowship grew.
eighty→one thousand… overcome among us. In one western city and its environs there are eighty of us and our families. We meet frequently …Chapter One: Bill’s Story · 1st ed. p. 25 · 4th ed. p. 15one hundred men→thousands of men and womenWE, OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, know one hundred men who were once just as hopeless as Bill. …Chapter Two: There Is a Solution · 1st ed. p. 27 · 4th ed. p. 1740 to 80→50 to 200… they seek. At these informal gatherings one may often see from 40 to 80 persons. We are growing in numbers and power.Chapter One: Bill’s Story · 1st ed. p. 25 · 4th ed. p. 16thirty of these→scores ofI personally know thirty of these cases who were of the type with whom other methods had failed …The Doctor’s Opinion · 1st ed. p. 1 · 4th ed. p. xxv
How this was compared
The editions do not share page numbers, so sections were matched by chapter and compared word by word. A change that is only punctuation (a comma, semicolon or period added or removed) or only a capital letter is left out; the words around a change are shown as the first edition prints them. A change to hyphenation or spacing within a word is counted and shown, such as well known → well-known. “Unchanged” is the share of a section’s first-edition words that sit outside every changed span. Changed spans are quoted exactly as printed. The Foreword, The Doctor’s Opinion and chapters 1 to 11 are covered. Kinds of change are sorted by a simple rule, so a few may sit in a neighbouring group. All figures come from the same file the Read pages use.