Parley P. Pratt, History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons, in Which Ten Thousand American Citizens Were Robbed, Plundered, and Driven from the State, and Many Others Imprisoned, Martyred, &c. for Their Religion, and All This by Military Force, by Order of the Executive. By P. P. Pratt, Minister of the Gospel. Written during Eight Months Imprisonment (Detroit: Dawson and Bates, 1839). Pratt had this book reprinted twice in 1840: as History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons . . . (Mexico, NY: Oswego County Democrat, 1840) and as Late Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints . . . (New York: J. W. Harrison, 1840). Though Pratt wrote History of the Late Persecution on his own initiative, the book was part of the Saints’ larger effort to gather up “a knowledge of all the facts and suffering and abuses put upon them by the people of this state [Missouri]” as JS directed while he was incarcerated in the jail at Liberty, Missouri. (Letter to Edward Partridge and the Church, ca. 22 Mar. 1839; Givens and Grow, Parley P. Pratt, 150–152.)

Givens, Terryl L., and Matthew J. Grow. Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Parley P. Pratt, The Millennium, and Other Poems: To Which Is Annexed, a Treatise on the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter (New York: W. Molineux, 1840). In this reprinting and expansion of Pratt’s pamphlet The Millennium, a Poem. To Which Is Added Hymns and Songs on Various Subjects, New and Interesting, Adapted to the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times (Boston: By the author, 1835), Pratt wrote with a strong sense of premillennialism, the belief that Christ’s imminent return would rescue humankind from a world that was rapidly deteriorating spiritually. Premillennialism also urged all men and women to repent and watch closely for portents signifying the approach of the second coming of Christ and the millennial era that would ensue. (Givens and Grow, Parley P. Pratt, 107–109; Underwood, Millenarian World of Early Mormonism, 3–5.)

Parley P. Pratt, The Millennium, and Other Poems: To Which Is Annexed, a Treatise on the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter (New York: W. Molineux, 1840)

Givens, Terryl L., and Matthew J. Grow. Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Underwood, Grant. The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

The “old collection” to which Pratt referred is the first hymnal compiled by Emma Smith after she was directed to do so in a July 1830 revelation. (A Collection of Sacred Hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints [Kirtland, OH: F. G. Williams, 1835]; Revelation, July 1830–C [D&C 25:11].)

In a January 1840 letter to his wife, Sarah Marinda Bates Pratt, Orson Pratt similarly commented on the lack of copies of the Book of Mormon in New York City. (Orson Pratt to Sarah Marinda Bates Pratt, 6 Jan. 1840, in Times and Seasons, Feb. 1840, 1:61.)

Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

The only printing press and type in Commerce were in the possession of Ebenezer Robinson and Don Carlos Smith, who were using them to publish the Times and Seasons. The Saints in Far West, Missouri, had buried the press and type to protect them from assaults by the church’s enemies. By June 1839, the Saints had unearthed the press and type and transported them to Commerce. That summer, Robinson and Smith cleaned the printing apparatus, purchased a new font, and began publishing the monthly paper. The printing operation was small, however, and not equipped for printing a book as large as the Book of Mormon, since printing a book required much more type than did printing a sixteen-page periodical. There were no foundries in the area that could create stereotype plates for printing. (JS History, vol. C-1 Addenda Book, 17–18; Ebenezer Robinson, “Items of Personal History of the Editor,” Return, Nov. 1889, 170; May 1890, 257.)

The Return. Davis City, IA, 1889–1891; Richmond, MO, 1892–1893; Davis City, 1895–1896; Denver, 1898; Independence, MO, 1899–1900.

Possibly W. Molineux, who had published Pratt’s collection of poems, or J. W. Harrison, who reprinted Pratt’s History of the Late Persecution.

During the 1820s and 1830s, when the public demand for books rapidly increased in the United States, the cost of book printing decreased only gradually and inconsistently from year to year and from place to place. For a general picture of printing prices in the eastern United States at this time, see, for example, the account books of Philadelphia publisher Carey & Lea in David Kaser, The Cost Book of Carey & Lea, 1825–1838 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963). (Green, “Rise of Book Publishing,” 110–127.)

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.

Hyrum Smith, Nauvoo, IL, to Lucian R. Foster, New York City, NY, Jan. 1840, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 82–84.

This is likely a reference to Charles Ivins, whom Pratt mentioned earlier in this letter.