The Armed Services Editions Collection

The Armed Services Editions Collection contains 1,064 of the 1,324 paperbacks published by Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., a non-profit organization established by the Council on Books in Wartime, from 1943 to 1947. The wide format of Armed Services Editions made them cheap to print and easy to slip into a field jacket.

Selected references:

• John Y. Cole, editor. Books in Action: The Armed Services Editions. (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1984).

• Editions for the Armed Services, Inc.: a history. Together with the complete list of 1324 books published for American armed forces overseas. (New York: Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., [1948]).

• A History of the Council on Books in Wartime, 1942-1946. (New York: The Country Life Press, 1946).

• Books Go to War. A virtual catalog of an exhibition held between 20 April and 10 September 1996 in the Dome Room of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia. A printed catalog of the exhibition, Books go to war: Armed Services Editions in World War II by Daniel J. Miller (Charlottesville: Published by the Book Arts Press, 1996), is also available.