Journals of John D. Lee, 1846-47 and 1859
Salt Lake City: Rolla Bishop Watt (Western Printing Company), 1938. First edition. Hardcover/dust jacket. 244 [7] pp. Number 104 of 250 copies. Scarce in dust jacket; DJ has chipping and minor staining to it with a long strip along the top edge of the front panel missing (approx. 1.5" at spine down to about .5" near right edge). Bottom edge rubbed. Light pencil markings to a dozen or so pages mostly in margins as well as several page corners that have been creased; image of Title Page of "Journal No. 6" is laid in; Inscription inside front cover: "Ap[ril?] 20 - 1938 Present from Dean R. Brimhall to Nels Anderson."
Before the publication of these journals, the only work on John D. Lee had been his problematic autobiography. The two journals that Charles Kelly (universally acclaimed as a curmudgeon-historian) edited were originally in the possession of Lee's defense attorney. They were then passed down in his family before landing at the Huntington Library. Alongside Kelly's well-known antipathy toward the LDS Church—he describes this publication as "the only Mormon records of their kind to be published without Mormon censorship"—was his obvious knowledge of the West that appeared in the annotation.
Dean Brimhall was a son of George H. Brimhall (former president of BYU). He became a renowned psychologist, aeronautics enthusiast, and safety advocate. Detailed bio at archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv80871.
Nels Anderson was a well known sociologist that published a book on Mormons in 1942: Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah. Condition: Very good. Item #1581
Price: $650.00