press in Liverpool, with a preface by Orson Pratt recommending
it; and the Millennial Star (Vol. XV, p. 682) said of it: "Being
written by Lucy Smith, the mother of the Prophet, and mostly
under his inspiration, will be ample guarantee for the
authenticity of the narrative.... Altogether the work is one of
the most interesting that has appeared in this latter
dispensation." Brigham Young, however, saw how many of its
statements told against the church, and in a letter to the
Millennial Star (Vol. XVII, p. 298), dated January 31, 1858, he
declared that it contained "many mistakes," and said that "should
it ever be deemed best to publish these sketches, it will not be
done until after they are carefully corrected." The preface to
the edition of 1890, published by the Reorganized Church at
Plano, Illinois, says that Young ordered the suppression of the
first edition, and that "under this order large numbers were
destroyed, few being preserved, some of which fell into the hands
of those now with the Reorganized Church. For this destruction we
see no adequate reason. "James J. Strang, in a note to his
pamphlet, "Prophetic Controversy," says that Mrs. Corey (to whom
the pamphlet is addressed) "wrote the history of the Smiths
called 'Mother Smith's History.'" Mrs. Smith was herself quite
incapable of putting her recollections into literary shape.

The autobiography of Joseph Smith, Jr., under the title "History
of Joseph Smith," began as a supplement to Volume XIV of the
Millennial Star, and ran through successive volumes to Volume
XXIV. The matter in the supplement and in the earlier numbers was
revised and largely written by Rigdon. The preparation of the
work began after he and Smith settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. In his
last years Smith rid himself almost entirely of Rigdon's counsel,