Collecting Armed Services Editions Daniel Weaver owner of The Book Hound

For the longest time I disdained softcover books. Two events jolted me out of my snobbery. The first was when an elderly women told me she bought paperbacks because her arms were to weak to hold up a hardcover book while reading in bed. The second event was when I sold a copy of Trixie Belden and the Galloping Ghost, the last book in the Trixie Belden series, available only in paperback, for nearly $100. After that, I began to pay more attention to paperbacks and found that many of them were and still are collectible. Some examples include the old Penny Dreadfuls, Ace Doubles, Big Little Books, Early Penguins, and pulp fiction with lurid cover art.

One series of paperbacks that has always intrigued me is The Armed Services Editions (ASE). These books which were published from 1943-47 were distributed to soldiers at the front. The largest distribution was just before D-Day when each soldier was given a book before boarding the invasion ships.

From 1943-47, a non-profit corporation, The Armed Services Editions, Inc., published 123 million copies of more than 1300 titles in two different sizes that fit conveniently in a soldier's cargo pocket. Titles included popular novels, classics, poetry, mysteries, westerns,sci-fi, some non-fiction, even a little philosophy.

Collecting ASEs presents a unique challenge. Due to the nature ofwarfare, thousands of these books were left behind in Asia and Europe. While many titles are easy to find, some are scarce and command topdollar. So far there is only one known complete set of these books, located at the Library of Congress. In 1984 Matthew Bruccoli, an ASE collector, had amassed only 518 titles after more than twenty years of serious collecting.

And now there are new ASEs to collect. Beginning in November 2002, Andrew Carroll, founder of Legacy Project, has been working with major publishers to bring ASEs back. So far seven titles have been published and distributed to our troops overseas.

You may not be interested in collecting ASEs per se, nevertheless if you collect Hemingway, Faulkner and other literary icons, you need to look at the ASEs. For example, ASE #825 A Rose For Emily And Other Stories by William Faulkner is a book put together especially for the Armed Services Editions, and is therefore a first and only edition of that title. If you are a sci-fi or fantasy collector, you will want to look at the Tarzan books, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The War of the Worlds and other titles.

If you have no interest in collecting ASEs, it's still worth learning about the biggest book give away of all time and and a major event in book publishing.

Meanwhile, consider other rewarding opportunities for collecting paperback books.

For further reference:

• The Center For The Book at The Library of Congress has information about the original ASEs.
• For information on the new ASEs visit the Legacy Project.
• Search for and purchase ASEs at Biblio.com. Enter "Armed Services Edition" in either the title or key word search.
• Books In Action, edited by John Y. Cole (Library of Congress, 1984) is the definitive guide to the ASEs.