Tell It All": The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism. An Autobiography by Mrs. T.B.H. Stenhouse, of Salt Lake City, For More Than Twenty Years the Wife of a Mormon Missionary and Elder

Hartford, Ct: A.D. Worthington & Co, 1875. Very good.. Irregularly paginated, with numerous plates. Original green cloth decoratively stamped in gilt. Minor wear and rubbing. Might occasional foxing and toning. A rare salesman's sample book for an 1875 Hartford edition of the "only authentic exposé ever given to the world by a real Mormon woman." The finished book describes the fall-out the author had with the Mormon Church and her evidently deplorable living conditions; she also criticizes the leadership of Brigham Young. The author was one of the wives of a Mormon elder for twenty years before becoming disaffected with the Church in the early 1870s. The work was first published in 1872 in New York as Exposé of Polygamy in Utah: A Lady's Life Among the Mormons. A Record of Personal Experience as One of the Wives of a Mormon Elder During a Period of More Than Twenty Years. The text of the present salesman's dummy begins with a one-page Preface by Harriet Beecher Stowe, followed by the author's preface, the table of contents, sample pages from various chapters in the finished book, and eight pages of advertisements and testimonials about Stenhouse's work. The text is supplemented by numerous full-page illustrated plates, and concludes with a section of lined paper intended for subscribers to the book. This copy includes one-and-a-half pages of subscriptions filled out by fourteen people who also include their residence, the style of binding they prefer, and the final price for their copy of the book. The subscribers all reside in either Three Bridges, Readington, Flemington, Barley Sheath, or Centervill, indicating their locations as most likely south-central New Jersey. OCLC indicates just five institutional copies of this salesman's sample, at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the University of Rochester, Amador County Library, the Bancroft, and the University of Illinois, though there may be a handful of additional copies reported as digital records.