The Journal of Discourses. Liverpool, November 1, 1853–May 17, 1886.
26 v. 22 cm.
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This periodical contains stenographic reports of sermons of the LDS Church authorities. It was conceived by George D. Watt, one of the first English converts, who learned the art of stenographic reporting at the behest of Brigham Young and who was the sole reporter for the Journal of Discourses during its first four years. Each number consists of a sixteen-page signature, which was issued twice monthly, twenty-four numbers composing a single volume. The intent was that a subscriber would save the twenty-four numbers and at the end of the year bind them together with a title page and index to form a continuously paged volume.
The discourses range over all aspects of Mormon life, although most are doctrinal in nature. Consequently the twenty-six volumes of the Journal of Discourses are an important record of the concerns of the church leaders during most of the second half of the nineteenth century.
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 42, p. [31].
Used by permission of the authors.
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY