Beverly Rogers Collection of Armed Services Editions (MS-00913)

The original publication of Armed Services Editions (ASE) books was a project that provided reading material for World War II service members between 1942 and 1947. During this time, the United States Navy and Army (including the Air Forces) received a total of 122,951,031 mass-produced paperback volumes of over 1,300 titles. In 2002, the Legacy Project revived ASE publications for American troops abroad at the time.

Formed by a group of publishers, booksellers, authors and libraries, the Council on Books in Wartime (CBW) worked to support World War II efforts of the U.S. Army and Navy with the publication of non-fiction and fiction. Titles include books about war, humorous books, popular fiction classics, and anthologies of stories and verses. The CBW used the slogan "books are weapons in the war of ideas" to emphasize the need not only for entertainment, but also for education regarding political, historical, and military issues. These publications predominantly, but not exclusively, featured contemporary best sellers.

The CBW initially sold ASE books to the Army and Navy at the cost of manufacture (approximately six cents per volume) plus ten cents for overhead costs. In the ASE’s development, the CBW focused on the books’ portability first and foremost, as they had to fit into a soldier’s pocket. As such, the CBW printed the books as "two-ups," or as pairs, one above the other, in a single magazine that was cut horizontally in half to create two separate pocket-sized books. They typically measured 14 centimeters by 10 centimeters after slicing, with longer books measuring 16.5 centimeters by 11.5 centimeters.

The CBW published the first ASE book in 1943. In the original publication run, the CBW organized the ASE titles numerically by monthly series until Series "HH," the thirty-fourth and last monthly series of the original ASE project in 1946. After WWII, the CBW agreed to continue the paperback prints, running until Series "TT," the last print series delivered in September 1947. Beginning in 2002, Andrew Caroll, author and archivist, revived the ASE’s publication with the Legacy Project prints, denoted by the Series “LP.” These issue numbers appear on the spines and/or front covers of the ASEs.

Sources:

Cole, John Y., ed. Books in Action: The Armed Services Editions. Washington, D. C.: The Center for the Book, Library of Congress, 1984. Accessed April 22, 2019. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a473543.pdf

Gable, John A., ed. The Man in the Arena. 1st ed. Washington, D.C.: Legacy Project, 2003.

Gussow, Mel. "Literature Re-enlists In the Military; Pilot Project Is Sending Books to American Ships And Troops Abroad." The New York Times, November 7, 2002. Accessed April 19, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/07/arts/literature-re-enlists-military-pilot-project-sending-books-american-ships-troops.html

U.S. Library of Congress. "Armed Services Editions." Library of Congress Catalog. Accessed April 19, 2019. https://lccn.loc.gov/53016500.

Wolff, H. and Stefan Salter. Editions for the Armed Services Inc.: A History Together With the Complete List of 1324 Books Published for American Armed Forces Overseas. New York: Council on Books in Wartime, 1948.