Item No: #361611 The Book of Mormon [Reorganized, Plano, Illinois]. Joseph Smith.
The Book of Mormon [Reorganized, Plano, Illinois]
The Book of Mormon [Reorganized, Plano, Illinois]
The Book of Mormon [Reorganized, Plano, Illinois]
The Book of Mormon [Reorganized, Plano, Illinois]

Early Reorganized Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon [Reorganized, Plano, Illinois]

Notes: An early edition of the Plano, Illinois, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints edition of the Book of Mormon.

This version was reprinted many times with a Lamoni, Iowa, imprint. This Plano imprint is much scarcer.

The bibliography for this title seems to need more work. There are two variants with the 1874 Plano imprint, one with a red border around the title and this one without a border. Flake's Mormon Bibliography (second edition, revised) is somewhat contradictory.

Entry 611 for the 1874 Plano imprint says, "The first edition published by the Reorganized Church.... It is not a reprint from the third American edition as the title page indicates but follows the Liverpool stereotyped edition of 1852. UPB copy has title page within red border. Some have suggested that the red border indicates the first printing."

Entry 614a (added between the original 614 and 615) offers an 1878 date with a question mark and adds, "Title page without red border."

According to Sabin (83053): "The first edition published by the Reorganized Church. It is not a reprint from the third American, as the title reads, but follows the Liverpool stereotyped edition of 1852, with which it agrees in the numbering of the verses and revised punctuation, first adopted in that edition. The index, pp. v–xii, is entirely new, arranged in the order of the paging with references to the verse numbers. The book was stereotyped, and the plates were used for about twenty later editions with the Lamoni imprint, until new plates were made in 1908."

Whether the printer stopped using a second color (requiring a second pass through the printing press) while working on the first printing or if those copies without the red border reflect a later second printing seems somewhat undecided. It is certainly the case that this copy, if it is a stereotype reprint, is very cleanly printed, without the type damage and imperfections typically seen in stereotyped books.

xiii, 545 pages. Roughly 4 by 6-1/4 inches. 16mo.

Edition + Condition: An attractive copy in the original leather binding, stamped in blind on the cover and in gilt on the spine. With a previous owner's name (C. W. Barns, Santa Cruz, California) dated 1899.

Publication: Plano, Ill. Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1874.

Item No: #361611

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