Tuesday AA literature post - from William Schaberg's Writing The Big Book, Page 286-287:

 

Bill as the Sole Author

Many modern readers have been critical of the writing in this chapter [We Agnostics - Jim B.], so a few word about its composition may be helpful.

   Wilson's authorship of the Big Book has been challenged - most famously by himself - but it is clear from everything he writes during this time that, at this point, he was the writer. There is no mention in contemporary records of the much touted collaborative editing process (which did, to some degree, occur later). In fact, all the 1938 evidence supports Bill Wilson as being the sole author of these chapters. His writing was, however, being criticized and critiqued by Hank Parkhurst and Ruth Hock, the two people who were constantly present as he dictated the book at their Honor Dealers office in Newark. In what proved to be a less than fruitful attempt to help with the book, both Ruth and Hank took a semester's worth of short story writing classes at New York University at this time and, in those classes, they learned just enough that "they were constantly trying to advise" Bill on how he might improve his prose style. This interference did not sit particularly well with Wilson, who noted bluntly that, in this regard, he "didn't go for Hank's advise very much."...

   Once again we have these two powerfully opinionated men disagreeing on what should and shouldn't be put into the book. But, as Wilson said at the time (in a slightly different context), he occupied "a position of considerable authority in this work" and since he "didn't go for Hank's advice very much," he just continued to compose the book in the way he thought best.