?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, publisher's calf, backstrip blind-tooled in seven double bands, moderate wear, original black leather spine label blind-stamped "Book of Mormon," label bright by scraped with partial loss of final word; front hinge split, foxing; inscription dated 1960 on front free endpaper. 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 5 of the 41 variants noted in Jenson: page 212 is numbered "122"; page 387 reads "Judeah"; page 394 reads "city; and"; page 507 reads "which is in my name"; and page 521 reads "rum-derers." 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. Provenance: said to be given circa 1900 by LDS president Lorenzo Snow to Cephas E. Anderson (though without any inscription by Snow); gift from Anderson to nephew Ronald Demars (1920-1977) in 1960; consigned on behalf of the family.
