Armed Services Editions, 1943 - 1947

Series — Multiple Containers

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This series consists of Armed Services Editions, miniature format paperbacks of best-sellers freely distributed to American troops. Inluded are a wide range of fiction and fistorical non-fiction titles. A sample of titles in no particular order includes:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Chicken Every Sunday: My life with Mother's Boarders by Taylor, Rosemary; Get thee Behind Me: My life as a Preacher's Son by Spence, Hartsell; The Native's Return by Adamic, Louis; Hostages by Heym, Stefan; Good Neighbors: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and seventeen other countries by Herring, Hubert; Candide by Voltaire; The Forest by White, Stewart Edward; Starbuck by Selby, John; Blazed Trail Stories by White, Stewart Edward; The Trees by Richter, Conrad; Country Lawyer by Partridge, Bellamy; and Black Majesty: A Biography of Christophe, Emperor of Haiti by Vandercook, John W.

Dates

1943 - 1947

Creator

Armed Services Editions, Inc. (Publisher, Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

Appointments to examine materials must be made in advance. Please e-mail QC.archives@qc.cuny.edu for more information or to schedule an appointment.

Biographical / Historical

The Armed Services Edition Books were miniature format paperbacks of best-sellers freely distributed to American troops. Published by The Council on Books in Wartime, they were designed to fit into a soldier's pocket and intended to boost morale of homesick soldiers and foster post-war habits of book reading. From 1943 to 1947, some 122 million copies of more than 1,300 Armed Services Edition titles were distributed to service members.