Mormon Publications: 19th Century - Interesting account of several remarkable visions

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Pratt, Orson. A[n] interesting account of several remarkable visions, and of the late discovery of ancient American records. By O. Pratt, minister of the gospel. Edinburgh, Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, 1840.

31 p. 17 cm.

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Orson Pratt’s Interesting account of Remarkable Visions . . . ranks as one of the great Mormon books as it contains the first printed account of Joseph Smith’s 1820 vision. Only three manuscript accounts antedating Remarkable Visions exist in the LDS Church Archives, reflecting that Joseph Smith discussed this transcendent vision only privately with a few trusted friends during the Church’s first decade. Joseph Smith himself did not commit this vision to print until two years after this pamphlet appeared when he described it in his letter to John Wentworth published in the Times and Seasons, March 1, 1842. The similarity of the two accounts suggests that Remarkable Visions was in view when the Wentworth letter was composed. In addition, the “sketch of the faith and doctrine” making up the final section of Remarkable Visions certainly influenced the formulation of the “Articles of Faith” which concludes the Wentworth letter.

Orson Pratt published this tract in September 1840, only four months after he arrived in Edinburgh, and immediately is became a successful missionary tool. It was republished three times in New York City in 1841 and 1842; and beginning in 1848, it was repeatedly republished in Liverpool by the tens of thousands in English, Danish, Dutch, and Swedish.

Two states of the 1840 edition exist, with and without the incorrect article “A” at the beginning of the title. Apparently after some copies with the “A” had been struck off, the error was discovered and corrected simply by eliminating the “A.”

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley and Chad J. Flake, A Mormon Fifty: an exhibition in the Harold B. Lee Library in conjunction with the annual conference of the Mormon History Association. (Provo, Utah, Friends of the Brigham Young University Library, 1984). Item 18, p. [16]; and Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 82, p. 127-29.

Used by permission of the authors and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University.