Mormon Publication: 19th Century - Biographical sketches of Joseph Smith

Smith, Lucy Mack. Biographical sketches of Joseph Smith the prophet, and his progenitors for many generations. By Lucy Smith, mother of the prophet. Liverpool, Published for Orson Pratt by S. W. Richards 15, Wilton Street. London, Sold at the Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 35, Jewin Street; and by all booksellers, 1853.

xii, [13]–297, [1] p. 16 cm.

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In 1845, Lucy Mack Smith, mother of the prophet, dictated her memoirs to Martha Jane Coray, who in collaboration with her husband Howard Coray produced two finished manuscript drafts of Lucy’s memoirs. The first manuscript was given to Brigham Young and was brought to Utah. The second was left with Lucy Smith. Seven years later, in the course of his trip to Washington, D.C., Orson Pratt purchased the second manuscript from Almon W. Babbitt, who had obtained it from Isaac Sheen, a former associate of William Smith, Lucy’s youngest son. Without further authorization, Orson Pratt proceeded to publish the manuscript in Liverpool with the title Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet. Brigham Young, however, objected to the published book on the grounds that it contained too many significant errors; and a large part of the edition was ultimately destroyed. It seems clear that equally irritating to Brigham Young was Lucy Smith’s favorable treatment of William Smith, who had become an outspoken opponent of the Utah church.

Despite a small number of minor errors, Lucy Smith’s history—the first Mormon biography—remains an invaluable source for the life of Joseph Smith.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley and Chad J. Flake, A Mormon Fifty: an exhibition in the Harold B. Lee Library in conjunction with the annual conference of the Mormon History Association. (Provo, Utah, Friends of the Brigham Young University Library, 1984). Item 41, p. [30–31].

Used by permission of the authors.