Some Key LDS Biographies for Your Home Library
by Richard H. Cracroft

The stories of Latter-day Saint leaders are the fabric of the Mormon faith, and, when interwoven, become the warp and woof of Mormon history.

Here I go again, blithely sticking out my stiff neck once more to suggest, this month, a handful of LDS biographies about church presidents and General Authorities which you might want to add to your home libraries. If you feel I've made egregious omissions (in other words, if my stiff neck has irritated your thin skin), e-mail any suggestions—as some of you were kind enough to do about last month's list of works by and about the Prophet Joseph Smith. I also welcome suggestions for the December column as to which books you consider to be the best in LDS Church history. My address: classicscorner@meridianmagazine.com

The stories of Latter-day Saint leaders are the fabric of the Mormon faith, and, when interwoven, become the warp and woof of Mormon history. Paraphrasing Thomas Carlyle, I might suggest, then, that Mormon history is the lengthened shadow of Mormon biographies, greater and lesser, of which Joseph Smith's story was the first.

The first Mormon biography, Lucy Mack Smith's The History of Joseph Smith, by His Mother, has now been newly issued and revised by George A. Smith and Elias Smith (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2000); and, in another edition, Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1996) edited by Scot and Maurine Proctor. The latter is a revision which uses her original notes as the basis and adds 600 footnotes and 150 pictures to add context to the manuscript. As noted last month, there are numerous biographies of Joseph Smith, Jr., who still awaits a definitive biography. In my opinion, the best biography of the Prophet for your home library is Donna Hill's Joseph Smith: The First Mormon (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977).

There are, as you might suspect, biographies of every Church president and some (but not all) counselors in the First Presidency (especially J. Reuben Clark, about whom Frank Fox and D. Michael Quinn have written so well in J. Reuben Clark:The Public Years (1980) and J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years (1983), respectively—and respectfully); and about many of the General Authorities. The problem in biographies about church leaders is that they are often uneven and subjective, written as worshipful and aggrandizing hagiography (writing the lives of the saints) for popular audiences at the expense of careful research and objectivity.

A good collective biography for your library is Leonard J. Arrington's The Presidents of the Church (Deseret Book, 1980), which provides excellent, brief accounts of the lives of LDS presidents from Joseph Smith through Spencer W. Kimball.

Brigham Young has been the subject of many biographies. The best is Leonard J. Arrington's classic and definitive study, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Knopf, 1985)-which should be in every library. Two briefer biographies are Eugene England's outstanding Brother Brigham (Bookcraft, 1980) and Susan Evans McCloud's more recent Brigham Young: A Personal Portrait (Covenant Communications, 1996). Right now, I am thoroughly enjoying Brigham Young: Images of a Mormon Prophet (Eagle Gate and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2000), a fascinating pictorial biography by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and R.Q. Shupe.

Each of the presidents of the Church has been the subject of several biographies, of varying quality. A home library could boast a biography about each. Francis M. Gibbons has written, for example, useful outlines of the lives of Heber J. Grant (1979) and George Albert Smith (1990); and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and R.Q. Shupe's recent Joseph F. Smith: Portrait of a Prophet (Deseret Book, 2000) presents the human side of the sixth president of the church; Merlo J. Pusey's Builders of the Kingdom: George A. Smith, John Henry Smith, and George Albert Smith (BYU Press, 1981) treats three generations of Mormon leaders from one family.

Useful biographies of recent presidents are David Lawrence McKay's My Father: David O. McKay (Deseret Book, 1989); The Life of Joseph Fielding Smith (Deseret Book, 1972), by Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr. and John J. Stewart; L. Brent Goates's Harold B. Lee: Prophet and Seer (Bookcraft, 1985); Sheri L. Dew's Ezra Taft Benson: A Biography (Deseret Book, 1987); and Eleanor Knowles's Howard W. Hunter (Deseret Book, 1994).

Alas, for choosing a few books for our libraries, there are a number of outstanding biographies about everyone from Hyrum Smith, Emma Hales Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Heber C. Kimball, to the Prophet's sons, Joseph Smith III and David Smith; and about a host of Mormon leaders from John Taylor and Lorenzo Snow to Bishop Edwin D. Woolley, Rudger Clawson, and Nathan Eldon Tanner-and they keep on coming! I have these books in my library and enjoy, in particular, Truman G. Madsen's Defender of the Faith: The B.H. Roberts Story (Bookcraft, 1980); and Eugene E. Campbell and Richard D. Poll's Hugh B. Brown: His Life and Thought (Bookcraft, 1975). But . . . I enjoy most of them, because I enjoy biographies more than fiction.

Nevertheless, in addition to Hill's Joseph Smith: The First Mormon and Arrington's Brigham Young: American Moses, I would recommend four exceptional biographies for your libraries:

• Thomas G. Alexander, in Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet (Signature Books, 1991), does a remarkable job of placing President Woodruff in the context of his times. An enlightening read that sticks to one's ribs.
• Edward L. Kimball and Andrew W. Kimball, in Spencer W. Kimball (Bookcraft, 1977), raised the standard of Mormon biography to a new high in this classic book, which concludes in April, 1977-a year before the revelation on granting the priesthood to all worthy men. I understand that Edward Kimball is writing a long-anticipated second volume.
• Davis Bitton, in George Q. Cannon: A Biography (Deseret Book, 1999), thoroughly chronicles the too-little known yet vastly influential life of this Apostle and counselor to four presidents. Cannon was to19th Century Mormonism what Gordon B. Hinckley has been to 20th Century Mormonism. This is another great read.
• Sheri L. Dew, in Go Forward With Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley (Deseret Book, 1999), has written an instant classic about a classic individual who, since about 1935, has been a part of virtually every major event or decision in Mormondom. Everyone should own and read this book.

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Richard H. Cracroft is Nan Osmond Grass Professor in English at BYU, where he has taught American Literature and Mormon Literature since 1963 and where he has served as department chair, dean of the College of Humanities, as coordinator of American Studies and, presently, as director of the Center for the Studies of Christian Values in Literature. He is married to Janice Alger Cracroft and they are the parents of two sons and a daughter and grandparents to (currently) six tykes. Dr. Cracroft is the author of several books and dozens of articles which have appeared in national and international journals; his anthology, edited with Neal E. Lambert, A Believing People: The Literature of the Latter-day Saints (1974;1979), is the first anthology of Mormon literature, and is being reprinted by Liahona. Dr. Cracroft, who is currently serving as bishop of BYU 203rd Ward (Marrieds), has been a missionary (Swiss-Austrian), bishop (Provo Bonneville Ward), stake president (Provo Utah East Stake), mission president (Switzerland Zurich), and branch president (Provo MTC). He is impatiently and 'umbly awaiting translation but is afraid it has been hung up in Correlation. Richard Cracroft can be reached online by sending email to myhomelibrary@meridianmagazine.com.