The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi by Smith, Joseph, Jr - 1830

Palmyra, New York: E. B. Grandin, 1830. First edition. Leather bound. Very good. 588pp. Duodecimo [19 cm] in original full brown sheep, with gilt-ruled spine and gilt-stamped black leather spine label, all edges speckled blue. Extremities rubbed; shallow creasing to spine; evidence of discreet professional repair to front joint. Hinges cracked, but holding; contemporary bookplate on front pastedown, along with a clipping of Joseph Smith's image; contemporary ink name on front free endpaper, dated 1834; front free endpaper almost completely disbound; small portion of rear free endpaper has become affixed to rear pastedown and torn free; foxing throughout, as usual for this edition, else text is unmarked. Housed in custom clamshell case of brown leather with black leather spine label. A very attractive example of this important book. The first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed in an edition of five thousand copies by Egbert B. Grandin in upstate New York. Printing took place between August 1829 and March 1830.The type was set based largely on the so-called "Printer's Manuscript," a transcription made by Oliver Cowdery from Joseph Smith's original manuscript. This transcription, like the original, was almost wholly lacking in punctuation, and was not broken into paragraphs; typesetter John H. Gilbert would remedy these issues as he set the type. The edition includes many variant copies with errors in pagination and spelling. Some of these are due to errors in the Printer's Manuscript, some to errors in typesetting. "[E]rrors were caught and corrected," says Peter Crawley, "but the sheets with the errors were not discarded; then books were assembled from signatures in several stages of correction, producing a large number of variant copies." A highly sought-after book, prized by historical, religious and Mormon book collectors alike. Crawley I 1. Flake/Draper 595. Bibliothica Scallawagiana 230. Howes S 631. Mormon 50: 1. Auerbach 1168. Sabin 83088.