A heavily edited document that helped shape Alcoholics Anonymous’ Twelve Steps has sold for $2.393 million. Its new owner plans to display it at the historic New York home of A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson and his wife, Al-Anon cofounder Lois Wilson.
The Stepping Stones Foundation purchased the manuscript at a Christie’s auction in New York on July 1, 2026. The nonprofit preserves the Wilsons’ former home, along with thousands of their letters, books, furnishings, and personal belongings. Instead of entering another private collection, the manuscript will become a centerpiece of the historic site’s collection.
This Isn’t Just an Early Copy of the Big Book
Alcoholics Anonymous began in Akron, Ohio, in 1935 after Bill Wilson, a New York stockbroker, met Dr. Bob Smith, an Akron surgeon. Both men had struggled with alcoholism, and their work together became the foundation of A.A. As the fellowship grew, its members needed a way to explain their recovery program to people beyond the earliest groups in Ohio and New York. The result was Alcoholics Anonymous, published in 1939 and commonly called the Big Book.
The manuscript sold at Christie’s is the printer’s copy used to produce that first edition. Its 167 pages are housed in a red cloth binder and filled with crossed-out passages, rewritten sentences, and notes in pencil and ink. Bill Wilson made some of those edits, but many were written by Hank Parkhurst, an early A.A. member who helped organize, edit, and publish the book.
The revised pages show that the program’s language was the subject of debate. Earlier versions of the Twelve Steps addressed the reader as “you.” Those instructions eventually became the collective “we” familiar to A.A. members today. Other revisions softened explicitly religious wording. In the third step, for example, a reference to God was qualified with “as we understand him,” leaving room for people with different beliefs. Before the auction, Christie’s detailed these changes in its description of the working manuscript.
About the Stepping Stones House
The Big Book was published before Bill and Lois moved to the Stepping Stones house, so the manuscript was not written there. Despite that, the manuscript will join the home’s extensive collection. Visitors can see it inside the home where Bill and Lois spent decades developing and supporting the fellowships they helped establish.
The couple purchased the Dutch Colonial Revival property in Katonah, New York, in 1941. It remained their home until Bill died in 1971 and Lois died in 1988. Bill continued writing in a small studio on the property known as Wit’s End. The main house also became a gathering place for people connected to the growing recovery movement. Lois’ work had a major impact of its own. In 1951, she and Anne B. began organizing groups for the relatives and friends of people with alcoholism. That effort developed into Al-Anon Family Groups.
Today, Stepping Stones preserves the rooms where the Wilsons lived and worked. Approximately 10,000 objects that belonged to the couple remain inside the house. Bill’s desk, complete with cigarette burns, sits in his writing studio. Lois’ desk is upstairs. Their kitchen table came from Lois’ childhood home, where Bill once listened to a friend describe the experience that helped him stop drinking. These objects and other parts of the property can be seen in the foundation’s history.
How the Manuscript Reached the Auction Block
A presentation page bound into the manuscript shows that Lois gave the printer’s copy to a friend in 1978. She described it as one of her most precious possessions. The document later passed through several owners before becoming part of the collection of Jim Irsay, the late owner of the Indianapolis Colts. Irsay collected historic documents, instruments, music memorabilia, and objects connected to American culture.
His daughters said that whenever he was asked which single item he would save from his collection, he chose the Big Book manuscript. Christie’s estimated that it would sell for between $1 million and $2 million. The final price reached $2.393 million. Irsay’s family said all proceeds from the manuscript’s sale will be donated to philanthropic causes that were important to him.
Stepping Stones secured the manuscript with support from its trustees, donors, volunteers, and staff. In its announcement following the auction, the foundation said it was raising additional money for the manuscript’s preservation, security, and display. A public display date has not been announced.
