The First After Yogananda’s Passing
The 4th (1952) edition was still published by the “Philosophical Library” in New York. Its wording is 100% identical with the 3rd 1951 edition. (If you happen to have a 4th edition, you may justifiably enjoy the text as a 3rd edition!)
In those days, as one reads in a future publisher’s note, the retypesetting of a book was fairly costly and difficult. For this reason, the New York publishing house did not include Yogananda’s revisions.
In fact, the only change one can find is the explanation of Yogananda’s Mahasamadhi in chapter 1, page 2. That page was left blank in the 3rd edition.
On the copyright page one discovers a little piece of news, which Yogananda would have loved: Hindi, the main language of his beloved India, was added to the languages. His book was available by now in: Bengali, Hindi, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. Copies in all those languages could be ordered from SRF, for $3.50 each. The US edition had the same price.
The dust jackets
For fans of the “AY”, here are a few words about the dust jackets which were used over the years (since the 4th edition has a special one):
For the first two editions the dust jackets were all similar in color: Llght blue. Yogananda loved the colors blue, yellow (gold), and white, since they are the colors of the spiritual eye.
The dust jacket of the 3rd and 4th edition of Autobiography of a Yogi were unique: they have a brownish color, using a different font.
From the 5th edition on, various orange dust jackets have been used.
All dust jackets use the same photo of Yogananda, except the one for the 5th edition.
Next chapter: 5th edition