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about Charlie... 
Charlie Bishop, Jr., was born Nov.
10, 1938. A graduate of Wheeling Jesuit University in 1960 with an
A.B. in English, he taught high school English for one year in Wheeling,
WV, and 3 years in Maryland. After that he wrote for the Associated
Press in Bluefield, WV; then reported for The Wheeling News-Register for
about 6 years, becoming city editor. After some misadventures in
public relations, advertising, and free-lance writing, he was divorced,
bankrupt, and out-of-work. He rented a $6. flea market table and
made $54. selling the remnants of his life. That was the beginning
of a 23-year career in books.
He began
collecting books on alcoholism in 1976 and over the years amassed the largest
alcoholism collection in private hands in the U.S., some 15,000 books,
letters, newspapers, pamphlets, tapes, photos, and ephemera which he sold
to Brown University's Center of Alcohol Studies in 1995 for $100,000.,where
The Chester H. Kirk Collection of Alcoholics Anonymous and Alcoholism is
open to any legitimate scholar or researcher, including AA archivists,
collectors, and writers.
Bishop
has published 11 books about alcoholism and A.A. and, for the past ten
years, issued an annual Sobriety Calendar.
He issued
a 60-page "Alcoholism Books for Sale" catalog in 1984 in a limited edition
of 500 copies which sold out and continues offering alcoholism catalogs,
the last being #32 in May, 1999. The 1984 alcoholism catalog was
accompanied by his article, "Alcoholism: The Invisible Pink Elephant of
Americana," in AB Bookman's Weekly Sept. 10, 1984, issue.
Bishop
has established a national reputation as an Antiquarian Bookseller-Appraiser
specializing in the Literature of Alcoholism. He has appraised Dr.
Bob's Library [Co-founder of A.A.], Henrietta Seiberling's Big Book, and
many other AA collections for insurance, tax, sale, and donation purposes.
Bishop
has lectured on the History of Alcoholism at Bethany College, WV; St. Francis
Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pa.; and West Virginia University. He served
as archivist for West Virginia AA for 6 years.
