Latter-day Revelation; Selections from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Containing Revelations Given Through Joseph Smith the Prophet.
Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1930. First edition. Hardcover. 176 pp. Flake-Draper 2914. Green cloth with title in gilt on spine and front cover; blue pen scribbles on verso of title page, the Foreword, page V-VII of the Contents and page 14. The pen created several small breaks to the pages in the Foreword and Contents pages. No additional markings.
Three days before Thanksgiving, 1930, an ad for a "small book" appeared in the Deseret News. Marketed "in no sense … a substitute for Doctrine and Covenants" but "as a welcome and convenient summary of many of the most important and impressive revelations." In later years, confusion arose as to the compiler, with one common guess being John A. Widtsoe. Inheriting the project from Anthony Ivins (who had ripped the desired sections from a physical copy of the Doctrine and Covenant) James Talmage was the true compiler, receiving an assignment from the First Presidency to highlight the "the strictly doctrinal parts of the Doctrine and Covenants." By eliminating those revelations "related to personal directions in temporal activities," it was thought that this condensed version would be valuable in missionary work. Fundamentalists would later claim the credit for the book disappearing quickly from shelves. However, editions were also published in subsequent years in Spanish, Norwegian and Dutch. Condition: Very good. Item #41202
Price: $200.00