Joseph Smith Papers “Documents” now available online

Without much heralding, the Joseph Smith Papers folks have snuck the contents of Journals, 1832-1839 onto their excellent website.

The contents of the first volume of Journals are available here:

http://beta.josephsmithpapers.org/thepapers

An empty section is set up for the first Revelations and Translations volume as well.

Those of you who already own the Journals volume might be interested to check out the “Documents” section. It appears to have the yet-to-be-published contents covering 1825-1831 and 1832-1833. Whether this indicates that these items will not be subsequently published in a physical book remains to be seen, but the FAQ section on the website says “It is expected that approximately twenty printed volumes will be published.” This seems a slight downgrade from the original projection of thirty some-odd volumes. This doesn’t indicate to me that the release of JS’s papers themselves is being scaled back, but rather that the medium upon which the papers are released is still in flux. (I still prefer a good and heavy book!)

Each document on the site includes an Historical Introduction, Source Note, image of the original document, and transcript of its contents. A “detailed view” option allows the viewer to zoom right in for a closer look, although I still couldn’t smell the richness of paper, ink, dust, or mold. Nevertheless, keep those papers coming, thanks!

6 Replies to “Joseph Smith Papers “Documents” now available online”

  1. Nice scoop, Blair. As I understand it, Docs 1 and 2 are still in the pipeline for print editions; they just decided to throw the docs online while they continue work on the annotations. For some reason, they decided not to announce when the docs were made available on-line, but I’m glad you caught it. You’re right that the total number of print volumes has been revised down, but it’s always in flux, so hopefully those calling for a comprehensive print edition will win out in the end. But you’re right that everything is supposed to go on the website eventually.

  2. This is wonderful. I enjoyed reading through a couple of the pages — and that zoom tool is brilliant. This is a top-notch website. Thanks for the heads-up.

  3. I will immediately seize your rss as I can’t to find your email subscription hyperlink or newsletter service. Do you’ve any? Kindly permit me understand in order that I could subscribe. Thanks.

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