?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 40,000 - $ 60,000
FIRST EDITION (MORMONS.) The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi. 588, [2] pages. 8vo, modern calf gilt; ink marks on title page, foxing, minor dampstaining in bottom margin of last 32 pages. Palmyra, NY: E.B. Grandin, 1830
first edition of the scripture of the mormon church, released just days before the official establishment of the church on 6 April 1830. This was the only edition listing Joseph Smith as the "author and proprietor" rather than as the translator, and the only edition with his 2-page preface. This copy has the 2 pages of witness testimony at the end, but not the index pages which were inserted in later copies. The first edition was printed with numerous variants; Crawley concludes that "very few copies of the book exist which are entirely identical." This copy includes the uncorrected sheets for 7 of the 41 variants noted in Jenson: page 144 reads "obout"; page 212 is misnumbered as "122"; page 393 reads "neither does those men"; page 458 reads "Gaddianhi" and "them, as"; page 521 reads "rum-derers" for "murderers"; page 575 reads "elder priest"; and page 576 reads "un-to the baptism" for "unto baptism." See Janet Jenson, "Variations between Copies of the First Edition of the Book of Mormon," BYU Studies 13 (Winter 73), 214-222. Crawley 1; Flake 595; Grolier Hundred 37; Howes S623; Sabin 83038; Streeter sale IV:2262.
