What is the single most informative and accurate reference book about the earliest Latter-day Saint publications? Hands down, it is . . .
Peter CRAWLEY. A DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE MORMON CHURCH. Volume One 1830-1847. Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, [1997].
27 cm. (= 10½ inches tall). 477 pages (index, pp. [447]-477). Black & white illustrations in the text. Brownish/gold cloth, gilt-lettered spine. Tan dust jacket printed in black and red. Condition as new.
postpaid:
$100::SOLD::
SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR; only edition. Volume two (describing later LDS books) has not yet been printed.
FROM
the first-edition Book of Mormon to the 1847 LDS hymn book, Dr. Crawley
brings history to life, uncovers new publication details, and provides technical
descriptions of 345 books and other imprints of the early Saints. Some descriptions
extend for several pages, providing the best single source of information
available on the early publications of the Church 1830-47. Here is a sampling,
a single paragraph from entry 23, A Collection of Sacred Hymns, for the
Church of the Latter Day Saints. Selected by Emma Smith (Kirtland, Ohio,
1835) . . .
Writing to his wife on November 14, Phelps complained of the backlog in the print shop and remarked that "the hymn book is not likely to progress as fast as I wish." Two hymns, "The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning" (pp. 120-21) and "The glorious Day is Rolling On" (pp. 93-94), are printed in the Messenger and Advocate for January 1836 from the same typesettings as in the hymnbook. The March 1836 issue also prints "The Spirit of God" from the same setting, and includes several other songs in the book, all printed from different settings. It would seem, therefore, that the hymnbook was finished about the time the January Messenger and Advocate was issued—sometime in February or March [1836]. [p.59]