Saturday, November 12, 2011

Rare LDS Book Arrival


Pratt, Parley Parker. A Voice of Warning and Instruction to All People, Containing
a Declaration of the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of the Latter Day Saints,
Commonly called Mormons. By P.P. Pratt, Minister of the Gospel.
New-York: Printed by W. Sandford, 29 Ann-St. MBCCXXXVII

x[11]-216 pp. 15 cm. Crawley 38, Flake 6627, Mormon Fifty 7, Scallawagiana 13.

1st ed. Original binding of blue cloth; title embossed on backstrip.

Deemed by historian Peter Crawley to be "the most important of all noncanonical Mormon books," the 1837 landmark publication A Voice of Warning brought together for the first time under one cover the scriptural arguments for the Biblical validity of the Mormon movement that have become the standard for Latter-day Saint missionaries to date. Additionally, A Voice of Warning served to bring into being a consciousness of religious identity heretofore largely unknown to those outside the Latter-day Saint communities of Kirtland, Ohio and Far West, Missouri. Fleeing the upheaval brought about by the recent apostasies in Kirtland, Parley P. Pratt accepted a mission to New York, where he devoted himself to the putting together of a text that, for the first time, would clearly contrast the position of the Latter-day Saints from that of their religious contemporaries. In October, 1837, the 1st edition of A Voice of Warning came off the New York press in a limited print run of 3,000 copies. The powerfully written Mormon treatise immediately drew the ire of local ministers and clergy and sparked vigorous debate across the pages of neighboring newspapers. A classic was born. Republished in a second American edition in 1839, and a subsequent European edition in 1841, A Voice of Warning would see translation into 8 languages and over 30 printings before the close of the 19th century.
 Another article about the book.  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/10/prweb4693664.htm

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