, Letter, , New York Co., NY, to JS, [, Hancock Co., IL?], 22 Nov. 1839. Featured version copied [between late Nov. 1839 and Apr. 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 77–79; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.
Historical Introduction
On 22 November 1839, wrote a letter to JS requesting permission to print the Book of Mormon and other publications in . Along with his brother , Pratt was traveling to by way of , , , and New York City. In New York City, they reunited with fellow , , , , and , as well as several other of the church who accompanied the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on their mission.
After apprising JS of the church’s status in , , and , indicated that members in those states needed church publications, including copies of the Book of Mormon and the church’s hymnal. Pratt had experience printing church publications, including the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon. JS held the copyrights to both the Book of Mormon and the hymnbook and was designated in a November 1831 revelation to act as part of a group of stewards over the publications of the church. Recent events had demonstrated the vigor with which JS guarded his responsibility to oversee church publications. In October 1839, JS presided over a general of the church that directed that an unauthorized edition of the hymnal published by , a church member in , be “utterly discarded” and “that a new edition of Hymn Books be printed immediately.” Pratt may have wanted to avoid a similar situation by seeking permission to print more church-authorized publications.
At the time wrote this letter, JS was en route to . Pratt sent the letter—endorsed in a postscript by , of the —to , Illinois, instead of to Washington. Pratt either was unaware of JS’s planned trip to the nation’s capital when he wrote the letter or opted to have church leaders in Commerce forward the information to JS rather than allow the letter to sit in a Washington post office awaiting JS’s arrival.
received the letter in and communicated to JS both the contents of ’s letter and his own responses to Pratt and . Even before receiving this letter, JS and other church leaders were apparently already aware of the Book of Mormon shortage in ; a newspaper reported that JS traveled through , Illinois, in November 1839 carrying several copies of the Book of Mormon “destined, no doubt, for converts recently made in New York.” In his reply to Pratt, Hyrum Smith wrote that though copies of the Book of Mormon were needed throughout the country, he could not “give any encouragement for the publication of the same, other, than at this place [Commerce] or, where it can come out under the immediate inspection of Joseph and his councillors, so, that no one may be chargeable with any mistakes that may occur.”
The original letter is apparently not extant. The version featured here was copied into JS Letterbook 2 by in late 1839 or early 1840.
Pratt, Autobiography, 327–328. Parley P. Pratt had been in Detroit for two weeks visiting family after spending six days ministering to “several small branches of the Church” located “within part of a day’s journey of Detroit.” Though a group of church missionaries, including Pratt, had first preached in the Buffalo, New York, area in September 1830 and Pratt had preached in that city while en route to Canada in 1836, he did not record the details of any interaction with church members there on this 1839 journey. Pratt arrived in New York City by 24 October 1839. (Woodruff, Journal, 24 Oct. 1839.)
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
See Collection of Sacred Hymns [1835], ii. In 1829 JS took steps to obtain a copyright for the Book of Mormon, but he may not have completed the process. Nevertheless, JS asserted his copyright authority for the Book of Mormon on at least one occasion in 1830 when a newspaper editor printed passages of the book without JS’s permission. (Copyright for Book of Mormon, 11 June 1829.)
News Item, Wisconsin Enquirer (Madison), 9 Nov. 1839, [2]. At this time, approximately eight thousand copies of the Book of Mormon had been printed in two editions. However, not all of those copies were in circulation, as an undisclosed number were destroyed in a fire in the Kirtlandprinting office on 15 January 1838. In December 1839, the Nauvoohigh council reported to the Times and Seasons that several missionaries traveling throughout the country requested church publications “of all kinds” and that the high council resolved to reprint thousands of new copies of the Book of Mormon and hymnbook. (Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:29–32, 66–68; “Sheriff Sale,” Painesville [OH] Telegraph, 5 Jan. 1838, [3]; Prospectus for the Elders’ Journal, 30 Apr. 1838; News Item, Times and Seasons, Dec. 1839, 1:25.)
Wisconsin Enquirer. Madison, Wisconsin Territory. 1838–1840.
Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.
I have great zeal, boundless ambition for the spread of truth, and some acquaintance with publishing, but lack in many other respects, but be assured I will be faithful in this matter if committed to my charge and when I get able to cross the sea I shall feel perfectly safe in leaving the whole business with the residue of the committee. We will give you one hundred dollars on each thousand coppies for the right of publishing, or we will give you one hundred Books on each thousand. Or we will publish it on commision and return you all the profits after defraying the expences of the same together with a reasonable charge for our time. Or, we will publish it on any other conditions which you can reasonably propose.
Please write immediately and let us know and in the mean time we will be getting ready and seeking for means.
Any Hymn Book which or the will favor us with shall also be published on similar conditions. If you would appoint a periodical to be published in this it can be done immediately and thousand would circulate here, where one would circulate from the west, they are so slow and uncertain in coming from there to us. I would also suggest for your considerations that the publication of the Book of Mormon in Europe, in English, French, German, and other languages be committed to the “,[”] as a committee who shall take charge of the same and whose duty it shall be to secure to you the Copy rights in the several goverments, and to render strict account from time to time to the
Dear Br, you may think I am in good earnest indeed about speeding this matter, and so I am for it must go to all Nations, Kindred. Tongues. and People ere long. I sincerely hope the day is not far distant when a printing establishment will be reared in some of according to the word of the Lord and the pattern given. We remember you on the question of your afflictions. I remain your Brother in the Bonds of the Everlasting Covenant. My Love to all enquiring friends
J. Smith Junr
approves of this letter and sends his love to you [p. 79]
In 1837 Pratt and his business partner, John Goodson, published the second edition of the Book of Mormon. (Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:66–68.)
Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.
Pratt tarried in New York for a number of reasons, including the need to arrange housing for his family in New York while he served his mission overseas, as well as a keen interest in continuing to build up the church in the eastern United States. Hyrum Smith expressed displeasure that Pratt had delayed traveling to England and had induced other apostles appointed to serve the same mission to “tarry and assist” him in his undertakings. (Pratt, Autobiography, 328, 331; Givens and Grow, Parley P. Pratt, 176–177; Letter from Hyrum Smith, 2 Jan. 1840; Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, New York City, NY, 22 Dec. 1839, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 80–81.)
Pratt, Parley P. The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry and Travels, with Extracts, in Prose and Verse, from His Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by Parley P. Pratt Jr. New York: Russell Brothers, 1874.
Givens, Terryl L., and Matthew J. Grow. Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
A person wanting to publish books at this time had several options for financial arrangements. These arrangements included the author gathering subscriptions for the book in advance, consenting to take payment from the publisher in the form of books that the author could then sell, or agreeing to buy any unsold books from the publisher after a designated period of time. The arrangement accepted by the printer was often based on the book’s sales prospects. (See Green, “Rise of Book Publishing,” 101; and Historical Introduction to Copyright for Book of Mormon, 11 June 1829.)
Green, James N. “The Rise of Book Publishing.” In A History of the Book in America, vol. 2, An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790–1840, edited by Robert A. Gross and Mary Kelley, 75–127. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
JS applied for copyright protection of the Book of Mormon in the United States in 1829. An 1830 revelation instructed him to “be dilligent in Securing the Copy right” of the Book of Mormon “upon all the face of the Earth.” Furthermore, a 23 April 1834 revelation addressed to the United Firm in Kirtland, Ohio, stated that copyrights to the church’s published works were essential so “that others may not take the blessings away from you which I have conferred upon you”—the “blessings” being control of JS’s revelations and the profits earned from publishing them. (Revelation, ca. Early 1830; Revelation, 23 Apr. 1834.)
In his response to this letter, Hyrum Smith informed Pratt, “As to publishing the Book of Mormon in Europe and other Nations I should entirely acquiesce to your proposition I do not know of any more suitable for attending to that business than the Twelve. If it should be deem’d wisdom to have the same publishd in England or elsewhere soon, You will be further advised on the subject and full powers given you immediately on the return of Joseph.” (Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Parley P. Pratt, New York City, NY, 22 Dec. 1839, in JS Letterbook 2, p. 81.)
In writing about “the pattern given,” Pratt may have been referring to an 1831 revelation that designated JS, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, William W. Phelps, and Sidney Rigdon as “stewards over the revelations and commandments,” meaning that only the men listed in that revelation were permitted to approve and manage the church’s publication of revelations and commandments. Hyrum Smith referred to this revelation in a January 1840 letter to Lucian R. Foster describing why he had denied Pratt’s request in this letter to publish additional copies of the Book of Mormon and the hymnal. Hyrum explained to Foster that “the printing of the Book of Mormon Doctrine & Covenants, Hymn Book and new translation of the old Scriptures . . . must be printed under the immediate inspection of those into whose care they are especially committed.” (Revelation, 12 Nov. 1831 [D&C 70:1–6]; Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Lucian R. Foster, New York City, NY, Jan. 1840, in JS Letterbook 2, p. 83.)