History of Joseph Smith by His Mother

Category: LDS Church history, biography

Themes: The life of Joseph Smith, the Restoration, faith, testimony, obedience to God, trials and adversity

Rating: 10 out of 10

Who Might Enjoy This: Adults and older teens

Reviewed By: Tim Carver

In January 1845, only months after the martyrdom of her two sons, Joseph and Hyrum, Lucy Mack Smith sat down to tell her life story to Martha Jane Knowlton Coray.

Lucy had told her son William that she was constantly answering questions on “the particulars of Joseph’s getting the plates, seeing the angels at first, and many other things which Joseph never wrote or published,” and she had “almost destroyed her lungs giving recitals about these things.” She “now concluded to write down every particular.”

The reader will be touched and edified by Lucy’s first-hand accounts of such experiences as Joseph’s leg operation as a young boy, Martin Harris losing the 115 page translation of the Book of Mormon, Joseph bringing home the plates from the Hill Cumorah.

There are two versions of the book available. I have read both and recommend the version edited by Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor. The original revised manuscript (as you will read in the introduction) had been heavily edited and much of Lucy’s original voice was taken out. The Proctors have restored Lucy’s original narrative and have also added more than 100 photographs and 500 footnotes. 

Lucy’s is a voice of faith, love and testimony. It is a voice that speaks to the heart of the sincere reader. I recommend it as one of the top three books on LDS Church history.

Tim Carver

“I often wonder to hear brethren and sisters murmur at the trifling inconveniences which they have to encounter . . . , and I think to myself, salvation is worth as much now as it was in the beginning of the work.”

Lucy Mack Smith