Beschreibung:

SMITH, Joseph (1805-1844). The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, Upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi...by Joseph Smith, Junior, Author and Proprietor . Palmyra, N.Y.: Printed by E.B. Grandin, for the Author, 1830.
SMITH, Joseph (1805-1844). The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, Upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi...by Joseph Smith, Junior, Author and Proprietor . Palmyra, N.Y.: Printed by E.B. Grandin, for the Author, 1830. 8 o (185 x 117 mm). Title-page (copyright notice on verso), Preface "To the Reader" signed "The Author" (pp.[iii]-iv), text (pp.[5]-588), extra leaf with "The Testimony of Three Witnesses" (recto) and "And Also The Testimony of Eight Witnesses" (verso). Without the two-page index issued at a later date. (Some spotting as usual.) Contemporary sheep, black morocco lettering piece (spine ends chipped, some rubbing, small wormhole on back cover). Provenance : John Preston; to Mrs. Augusta Gibbons; gifted to Julia Cullen (provenance note on front pastedown). FIRST EDITION, with the extra leaf of testimonies, of Joseph Smith's translation of the golden tablets revealed to him by the angel Moroni in the hill of "cumorah" near Manchester, New York. This edition is the only one in which Smith was listed as "author" rather than "translator," and was printed only two weeks before the formal founding of the Church of Latter-Day Saints on 6 April 1830. The text was dictated by Smith to Oliver Cowdery, who served as scribe and who testified, along with David Whitmer and Martin Harris, to the existence of the golden tablets. Egbert B. Grandin, a local printer and proprietor of the Wayne Sentinel , undertook to print the sizeable edition (5,000 copies) for the 25-year-old Smith. The manuscript "was delivered a few pages at a time to the typesetter, who supplied all the punctuation and paragraphing" (Crawley and Flake). Church 1342; Crawley & Flake, A Mormon Fifty 1; Grolier American 37; Howes S-623; Sabin 83028; Streeter IV:2262.