Introduction to Works Cited

This list of sources serves as a comprehensive guide to all sources cited on this website. Annotation has been documented with original sources where possible and practical. In entries for manuscript sources, dates identify when the manuscript was created, which is not necessarily the time period the manuscript covers. Newspaper entries provide beginning and ending years for the publication. Since newspapers often changed names or editors over time, such dates typically approximate the years the paper was active under a particular editor; when it is impractical to provide beginning and ending publication dates by an editor’s tenure, dates may be determined by major events in the paper’s history, such as a merger with another sizable newspaper.

Some sources cited on this website are referred to on first and subsequent occurrences by a conventional shortened citation. For convenience, some documents are referred to by editorial titles rather than by their original titles or by the titles given in the catalogs of their current repositories, in which case the list of works cited provides the editorial title followed by full bibliographic information.

The annotation in The Joseph Smith Papers includes numerous references to works accepted as scripture by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The principal citations of Latter-day Saint scripture appearing in annotation are to JS-era published or manuscript versions. However, for reader convenience, these citations also include a bracketed reference to the current and widely available Latter-day Saint scriptural canon. All versions of scripture cited on this website, early or modern, are identified in the list of works cited.

The church’s current scriptural canon consists of the King James (or Authorized) Version of the Bible (KJV), plus three other volumes: the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. The following paragraphs provide more detailed information about uniquely Latter-day Saint scriptures and how they are cited on this website.

Book of Mormon. The first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed for JS in 1830. He oversaw the publication of subsequent editions in 1837 and 1840. The Book of Mormon, like the Bible, consists of a number of shorter books. However, the website cites early editions of the Book of Mormon by page numbers because these editions were not divided into numbered verses. The bracketed references to the modern (1981 and 2013) Latter-day Saint edition of this work identify the book name with modern chapter and verse.

Doctrine and Covenants. JS authorized publication of early revelations beginning in 1832 in The Evening and the Morning Star, the church’s first newspaper, and initiated the publication of a compilation of revelations, which first appeared in 1833 under the title Book of Commandments. Revised and expanded versions of this compilation were published in 1835 and 1844 under the title Doctrine and Covenants. Since JS’s time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has continued to issue revised and expanded versions of the Doctrine and Covenants, as has the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). The bracketed references to the modern (1981 and 2013) Latter-day Saint edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, which cite by section number and verse, use the abbreviation D&C in the place of Doctrine and Covenants. A table titled Corresponding Section Numbers in Editions of the Doctrine and Covenants aligns the corresponding section numbers of the three JS-era compilations and the current editions of the Doctrine and Covenants published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and by the Community of Christ. For more information about the format of Doctrine and Covenants citations, see the Editorial Method.

Joseph Smith Bible revision. Beginning in June 1830, JS systematically reviewed the text of the KJV and made revisions and additions to it. JS largely completed the work in 1833, but only a few excerpts were published in his lifetime. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints published the entire work in 1867 under the title Holy Scriptures and included excerpts from the writings of Moses in two sections of its Doctrine and Covenants. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which today officially refers to JS’s Bible revisions as the Joseph Smith Translation, has never published the entire work, but two excerpts are canonized in the Pearl of Great Price and many other excerpts are included in the footnotes and appendix of the modern (1979 and 2013) Latter-day Saint edition of the KJV. In the Papers, references to JS’s Bible revision are cited to the original manuscripts, with a bracketed reference given where possible to the relevant book, chapter, and verse of the Joseph Smith Translation.

Pearl of Great Price. The Pearl of Great Price, a collection of miscellaneous writings that primarily originated with JS, was first published in 1851 and was canonized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1880. The modern (1981 and 2013) edition of this work consists of the following: selections from the Book of Moses, an extract from JS’s Bible revision manuscripts; the Book of Abraham, writings translated by JS beginning in 1835 after the acquisition of some Egyptian papyri and first published in the Times and Seasons in 1842; Joseph Smith—Matthew, another extract from JS’s Bible revision manuscripts; Joseph Smith—History, a selection from the history that JS began working on in 1838; and the Articles of Faith, a statement of beliefs included in a JS letter to Chicago newspaper editor John Wentworth and published in the Times and Seasons in 1842. Except in the case of Joseph Smith—History, citations on this website to early versions of each of these works also include a bracketed reference to the corresponding chapter and verse in the modern Latter-day Saint canon. The Pearl of Great Price is not part of the canon of the Community of Christ. References to the history JS began work on in 1838 are cited to the original manuscript of that history (see entry on “JS History” in the list of works cited).

Citations to legal cases on this website usually reference the name of the case; the name of the legal reporter in which information about the case was published (when applicable), together with volume and page number; the deciding court; and the year of the court’s decision. Legal reporters documenting court decisions are referred to by an abbreviated title; full bibliographic information for each reporter is provided in the list of works cited, alphabetized under the abbreviated title. For example, in the citation “In re Clark, 9 Wendell 212 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1832),” the case name is In re Clark, information about the case is located on page 212 in volume 9 of the legal reporter abbreviated as Wendell, and the case was decided by the New York Supreme Court in 1832.

Jurisdictions and court names used in legal citations are contemporary to the year of the cited case and do not necessarily correspond to modern courts or jurisdictions. In accordance with Nauvoo’s charter, Nauvoo’s mayor and aldermen simultaneously held positions as justices of the peace within the limits of Nauvoo; cases decided in Nauvoo’s municipal or mayor’s court do not use the “J.P. Ct.” designation.