Candland, David.  The fireside visitor; or, plain reasoner. David C. Kimball. Liverpool: Printed for the Author by R. James, 39, South Castle Street.  [1846].
3 nos. 4[5]-8[9]-16 pp. 21.5 cm.

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David Candland introduced the Fireside Visitor in the Millennial Star (see this digital collection) of August 1, 1846.  Here he advertised the first number at one penny each, and remarked that if it was favorably received, he intended to publish “seven or more … till every principle embraced and believed by myself and friends, is placed before the people at their firesides.”  The Star advertised the second number two weeks later, and the third on October 1.

It is reasonably certain that Candland got out only three numbers.  Thomas D. Brown reported in the Star of February 1, 1847, that he had “some hundreds” of the three numbers to sell in order to settle the printer’s bill.  The European Mission financial records also mention only three numbers.  On October 3, 1846, Orson Hyde and John Taylor arrived in Liverpool to investigate the Joint Stock Company (see The British and American Commercial Joint Stock Company in this digital collection)  Since Candland was slightly involved in promoting the company, its collapse undoubtedly diverted his attention from the Fireside Visitor.

Each number of the Fireside Visitor is signed at the end David C. Kimball, the name Candland adopted during his mission.  Each number bears a separate subtitle descriptive of the topic it treats: “On the Necessity of Baptism as a Means of Salvation,” “On the Departure from the True Order of the Kingdom Foretold,” and “The Restoration of the Kingdom.”  Candland’s treatment of the first topic is nearly identical with that in the third chapter of the Voice of Warning (see this digital collection).

 The second number marshalls New Testament proof–texts which, Candland declares, predict that Christ’s church would slip into apostasy after his death.  Almost all of these are included in Benjamin Winchester’s Synopsis of the Holy Scriptures.  In the third number Candland cites passages from the Bible to support the contention that the ancient gospel must necessarily be restored by God to man, a concept more forcefully argued in the second chapter of Voice of Warning. 

But Candland’s idea of issuing a series of tracts each defending a particular tenet of Mormonism was a good one, which would be borrowed by Orson Spencer with his Correspondence between the Rev. W. Crowel and by Orson Pratt with his A Series of Pamphlets (both these titles are in this digital collection).—two of the Church’s most influential works.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church.  Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]).  Item 308, p. 345-47.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University