John Doyle Lee: Zealot-Pioneer Builder-Scapegoat
Glendale: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1961. First edition. Hardcover. 404pp. 1 of 209 copies. Minor soiling to covers; minor bumping to the head and foot of the spine with a few small tears to the cloth there and at the top of the rear joint
As an outgrowth of her work on the Mountain Meadows Massacre and the John D. Lee diaries, Juanita Brooks turned her attention again to Lee. By 1956, she was formally working on a biography, with her usual talent for turning up sources in nooks and crannies. Brooks persevered through the (for her) predictable set of interruptions of teaching, wedding and missionary receptions for her children and correspondence from numerous authors and curiosity seekers. Just two years later, nearly half of the chapters were written. One more year of sustained effort yielded a complete draft. Brooks first submitted it to Alfred Knopf who-despite the success of No Man Knows My History-rejected the manuscript. After two more attempts, the book landed with Arthur H. Clark, due to a recommendation from her uncle LeRoy Hafen (a many-times-over Clark author). At a Lee family reunion, Brooks hinted that the delays in publication meant that an anxious unused fact was waiting to come to the surface. Prophetic to a fault, the family drafted a resolution to petition that Lee be posthumously reinstated to membership in the LDS Church. By April 1961-already deep in the weeds with the Hosea Stout diaries-Juanita received galleys which she proofed within two weeks. The explosive news then landed at her feet. Church leaders had approved reinstatement for John D. Lee. She drafted a small section to be hurriedly added to the book pending her go-ahead. Her attempts at gaining church approval for the addition immediately ran into a wall. Apostle Delbert Stapley applied pressure through Lee family members, hinting that the reinstatement might be reversed. Nonplussed, Brooks pointed out that the news was already making the rounds-Stapley blew his top. Juanita agreed to leave the statement out of the first edition but that was as much as she would compromise. As a result, the first edition totaled just 209 copies with a much larger second edition (2500 copies) to be simultaneously released. Due to this confluence of factors, the first edition of John Doyle Lee is a true modern collectible. Condition: Very good. Item #41514
Price: $950.00