The original manuscript for Alcoholics Anonymous (known to its adherents as the Big Book) is set to auction at Profiles in History.
The text is valued at $2m-3m.
Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the best-selling books of all time.
Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the most influential books of all time
Written in 1939, four years after the organisation was founded, it offers its readers a 12-step approach to recovering from addiction.
It was authored by Bill Wilson, one of the founders of AA, and edited with the help of the members of various chapters across America.
All shared their stories of hitting rock bottom, and subsequent recoveries, with more than 30m readers worldwide.
This manuscript consists of 161 typed pages, annotated in places by Bill Wilson himself. He left the text to his wife when he died in 1971.
It last sold for $1.5m at Sotheby’s in 2004, triple its $500,000 estimate.
Alcoholics Anonymous has had an extraordinary impact, so much so that in 2012 the Library of Congress placed it on its list of 88 Books that Shaped America.
AA historian Dr Ernest Kurtz said: “Not only is this Manuscript the most important nonfiction manuscript in all history, I consider it right up there with the Magna Carta because of the personal freedom it has provided so many millions of alcoholics!”
The lot will cross the block on June 8.
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