kill date: 11/02/09
New From Scrub Oak Bindery
& Ken Sanders Rare Books:
1833 Book of Commandments
Ken Sanders Rare Books, in cooperation with Ethan Ensign and Scrub Oak Bindery, is pleased to announce the November 1st release of a letterpress replica of the 1833 Book of Commandments, the most sought after LDS text, of which less than thirty copies are known to exist.
With the prospects of a Mormon press came the possibility of printing Joseph Smith's revelation and making them more widely available to the members of the Church. At a conference in Hiram, Ohio, in November 1831, it was resolved to print the revelations in book form under the title Book of Commandments in an edition of 10,000. Five months later, when Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and other journeyed to Independence with paper for the new Mormon press, the size of the edition was reduced to 3000. Five signatures comprising 160 pages had been printed when the printing shop was destroyed on July 20, 1833. Sheets of the unfinished book were salvaged from the wreckage of the shop; some were collected as they blew about the streets of Independence. From these sheets a few copies of the Book of Commandments were assembled. About twenty are known, most in homemade bindings – a reflection of the salvaged nature of the book. The title page occurs in two states, with and without an ornamental border.
Just what the completed Book of Commandments would have contained is a matter of conjecture. Considering those revelations published earlier in the Star and those published subsequently in the Doctrine and Covenants, it would appear that the completed book would have contained at least one and possibly two additional signatures.
– Peter Crawley and Chad Flake, A Mormon Fifty
The plates used for the replicas were scanned from the Wilford Woodruff copy at 2400 dpi with permission of the LDS Archives. The book is printed in a limited edition of 100 numbered copies and a deluxe edition of twenty-six lettered copies. Both editions are bound in full leather and include a display box (cloth for the limited edition; leather spine and Japanese silk cloth for the deluxe edition) as well as a separately bound foreword by Peter Crawley. The paper for the book was made by hand at Tryst Press using linen and cotton fibers with an oak leaf watermark. The books are printed using photopolymer plates on a Vandercook proofing press.
The deluxe edition features several variants that are representative of known period bindings on existing volumes and is hand-sewn and bound using techniques consistent with historical styles. The deluxe edition will also include two letterpress printed title page variants for framing or display, as well as space for a leaf.
This title is available exclusively through Ken Sanders Rare Books. We are now taking pre-orders on both editions. Books will be available November 1st. The Limited Edition is $1500.00 and the Deluxe Edition is $2500.00. Mail orders please add $10.00 shipping and handling for the limited edition and $15.00 for the deluxe edition. Utah orders please add $102.75 Utah Sales Tax for the limited edition and $171.25 for the deluxe edition. These editions are sure to sell out so reserve your copy today.
To see enlarged photographs of both editions of the Book of Commandments, please click on the images to the right.
For further information, please contact:
Ken Sanders Rare Books
268 South 200 East
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
(801) 521-3819
http://kensandersbooks.com