The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 2, July 1831–January 1833 ed. by Matthew C. Godfrey et al. (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 2, July 1831–January 1833 ed. by Matthew C. Godfrey et al. David E. Speich The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 2, July 1831–January 1833. Edited by Matthew C. Godfrey, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley ( Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2013. 550 pp. Cloth $54.95, isbn 978-1-60907-598-9.) This volume of historical documents is organized chronologically and geographically into five parts, with various types of documents transcribed and organized according to stages in Smith’s work. This volume covers the period when a portion of the Church of Christ (precursor of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) migrated from Ohio to Missouri. The front matter includes a time line of Smith’s life arranged, arbitrarily, in a two-dimensional graph format, facing a useful map showing Smith’s five residences during this period. The scope of this edition is different from the The Papers of Joseph Smith (1989), which was edited by Dean C. Jessee, the general editor of the current larger multivolume edition. The Documents series of the current edition includes various kinds of documents that depict the logistical and organizational challenges faced by the church, the development of doctrine in the church through Smith’s revelations and visions, and details of Smith’s personal and family life. The editors sought to publish as many extant original documents as possible, but used their judgment in selecting the best version of a text when original documents were not available. Although histories are also published separately for the current edition, the 1832 history appears in this volume, perhaps because it “provides the most personal, intimate account of JS’s early visions available and preserves details of those visions not recorded elsewhere” (279). Because the 1832 history appears in both editions (pp. 1–10 in the 1989 edition; pp. 275–85 in the 2013 edition), I chose to use it as the basis for evaluating the current edition. [End Page 91] Each document represented in the Document series includes a source note, a historical introduction, and a document transcript, along with explanatory footnotes. This edition uses a variety of font sizes to distinguish the transcripts, the historical introduction, the footnotes, and the source notes (in decreasing order of size); in addition, the title and citation of the selected document are italicized, and Smith’s own handwriting is presented in boldface. On any given page spread the reader may find three or four of these font styles, giving the already sprawling pages a somewhat disjointed look. The source note gives an extensive history of the text using physical evidence of the source documents and additional collated documents. The historical introduction gives even more detail based on other sources, and includes informed speculation about the circumstances of composition and the transmission of the text. Compared to the previous edition, the document transcript in the current edition includes more details about alterations in the holograph manuscript. The footnotes in the current edition are more numerous and include many cross-references to doctrinal sources as well as historical sources, whereas the previous edition footnoted primarily historical sources. The transcriptions and the footnotes indicate that the editors are doing substantially original work. The previous edition included, for the 1832 history, a photograph of the first page of the holograph manuscript and a 1907 photograph of the town where Smith was born. The current edition does not include illustrations for this selection, but overall seems to include more illustrations than the previous edition. The back matter contains many items of historical interest, such as maps, a pedigree (genealogical) chart, and a biographical directory; organizational charts; cross-references in doctrinal documents; an index; and material relating to the work of documentary editing, such as the “Calendar of Documents,” “Source Notes for Multiple-Entry Documents,” and the “Essay on Sources.” In summary, this volume demonstrates close attention to principles of documentary editing while also carefully placing the documents in question within historical and doctrinal context. [End Page 92] David E. Speich Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Copyright © 2016 The Kent State University Press