FIRST TRANSLATION INTO ANY LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK OF MORMON

THE BOOK OF MORMON - JOSEPH SMITH - ERASTUS SNOW.

Mormons Bog. [The Book of Mormon] En Beretning, skreven ved Mormons Haand paa Tavler, efter Nephis Tavler. Oversat paa Engelsk fra Grundtexten af Joseph Smith den Yngre. Udgivet og forlagt af Erastus Snow.

København, F. E. Bordings Bogtrykkeri, 1851.

Small 8vo. Simple contemporary brown full calf with double gilt lines and gilt title to spine. Spine worn, especially upper capital, which is split and lacking a bit of the leather at top. Front hinge and corners work. Binding generally tight and solid, strictly contemporary, and unrestored. Front free end-paper with owner's inscription of "Edv. Munch", dated 1886, in pencil. First and last leaves with brownspotiing, but overall very nice and clean. Bound with the leaf containing the testimony of the three and eight Witnesses on recto end verso respectively. (8), 568 pp.

Exceedingly rare first edition thus, namely the seminal first printing of the first translation into any language of the Book of Mormon.

After the Prophet Joseph Smith's original translation of the Book of Mormon from the gold plates into English in 1829 and the return of those plates to the angel Moroni, no translations from English into any other languages appeared until this Danish translation of 1851. After this groundbreaking first translation, the Book of Mormon has been translated in its entirety into 95 languages (with portions of the book having been translated into another 20 languages) and has been printed in more than 150 million copies.

The divine injunction states that "every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language" (D&C 90:11), and thus making the Book of Mormon available in other languages was regarded as highly important. Missions were opened on the continent of Europe in 1850 and 1851, and Church leaders in many of the newly opened missions quickly began attempts at translations. The Danish edition had already been contemplated in 1845, however, and was thus the very first to appear, meaning that Latter-day Saints in Denmark were the first to read the Book of Mormon in their native tongue.

At a general conference in 1845, President Brigham Young appointed Apostle Erastus Snow and Elder Peter Olsen Hansen to work on this Danish translation of the Book of Mormon, which would open up the Book of Mormon to other-language speakers of the 19th century. Peter O. Hansen was a native Dane and was to do the actual translation, while Erastus Snow was to guide Hansen and be in charge of publishing . They both arrived in Copenhagen in May 1850 and precisely a year later Snow could report back that the Danish translation had been printed, in 3000 copies. Many of these are now lost or destroyed, and the first edition of the book is of the utmost scarcity. (See, Andrew Jenson: History of the Scandinavian Mission, 1927).

Order-nr.: 60373